childrens Archives - Handmade by Carolyn

Why do I sew with striped fabrics?!

01/03/2025 1:51 pm \ 7 Comments \ Carolyn

rhetorical question, don’t mind me. I actually love stripes, even though when I do sew with them I feel inextricably compelled to pin each and every stripe. It’s ok. A small amount of suffering is acceptable when it leads to nice things.

Anyway, I made a new outfit for myself, in anticipation of the slightly cooler weather that heralds the onset of autumn, hurrah. The fabric is a really nice, crisp, slightly crinkly, and reassuringly sturdy ticking striped cotton, ivory with steel blue stripes, and a silver thread running through. I bought it years ago from Fabulous Fabrics, and it’s been one of those lengths of fabric that I’ve “saved” for really a nice project, one far off day. It’s always a lovely thing when that far off day finally dawns.

For the top, I used the new Fibremood Kristy pattern, a smart top with big patch pockets with arrowhead flaps, and a nice shaped collar, with the most rudimentary of collar stands.

I lengthened the sleeves by several inches so I could turn up a cuff, and I love how this looks. There’s double topstitching just about everywhere although it doesn’t stand out since I used matching ivory thread, but you do pick it up subconsciously.

My skirt is, of course, our own Meelup skirt pattern. I do feel a bit bad about my possible overuse of this pattern and have decided I really need to branch out a bit with regard to skirt patterns, well, ALL patterns really, but it really does tick all my boxes so well. Maybe I’ll limit myself to just one of a pattern per year? worth a thought!

I lined the skirt with ivory poly acetate lining fabric, also from stash. This adds a bit of necessary body to the skirt too, making it nicer to wear. In fact, the whole outfit is very comfy, and happily has a certain subtle chic afforded by the details on the Kristy top; I really love it a lot.

I also ran up an adorable little pair of shorts for my littlest grandchild G, using the very last of the leftover “public pool” cotton drill fabric designed by his mother, which I bought from her Spoonflower shop, here.

The pattern I used is Butterick 5510, size M. This is the biggest size in the envelope, so I’ve realised I need to use it a few more times, and quickly too, before G grows out of it! I’d almost forgotten how much fun children’s clothes are to make, so quick and easy compared to adult clothes. I traced out the pattern and finished the shorts in about an hour, tops!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Butterick 5510, childrens, fibremood, Gilbert, Kristy, Meelup skirt, own design, shorts, skirt, top

little scrappy cardigan

29/02/2024 8:49 pm \ 5 Comments \ Carolyn

Phew! My February knitting project was finished in the nick of time! Honestly now, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to keep up with my resolution of one knitting project per month this year, my hands might not be able to cope… but I’m still going to give it my best shot!

This is a little cardigan destined for Theo; I bought this pattern online; the Sirda Denim Cardigan. I made the second size and all yarns are scraps and leftovers from my still very large bag of scrap yarns. The buttons are coconut shell buttons, also from stash. I know, I know; sorry! the “stash” is becoming a tiresome mantra by now, but honestly I could keep working form my scraps and stash all year and may not still get through it!

I made this exactly to the pattern … except! (there’s always an exception, hehe) I knitted the body in one piece, as opposed to back, right front and left front; and then added in the sleeves and continued with the raglan seams in one piece; so essential it becomes a bottom-up, all-in-one knit. The only seams are the sleeve seams and under the arms. I felt rather clever about this. #undeservedSelfBackPat but have to admit that it made the underarms maybe a little looser than I would have liked, due to the natural stretching that occurs at this point when you join the body and two sleeves together to continue knitting above the underarms. If I was going to do this again, which I most probably will, I will re-work the needle arrangement so as to alleviate the pressure on the underarm, and post some pictures. 🙂

I’m so pleased with how the colours and stripes worked out!!

Here are some fun links though; the yellow mustard is leftovers from my mustard cowl, here...

the navy blue is leftovers from my ghost horses jumper, here. It’s slightly frustrating that the navy blue looks so black in this photo, but I promise it does look more blue in real life!

all other yarns are inherited from my mother. A few were also featured in my January project for Gilbert, namely the mustard, and the deeper brown used in the borders of this cardigan. Hehe, I know this all sounds rather pedantic to be documenting to this extent but it gives me joy to do so, so you know… 🙂

Oh! speaking of that, I finally have a picture of Gilbert wearing the baby jumper and beanie I made for his baby shower last year… how adorably cute is he?!!

Posted in: knitting \ Tagged: baby clothes, babywear, cardigan, childrens, knitting, sirdar denim cardigan, Theo

Old things…

17/11/2011 8:13 am \ 18 Comments \ Carolyn

… this will be the very last of my “old things” posts. I promise.
I’ve done a mammoth sort-through of the photos and I think this is it! (heaves a sigh of relief…)

Firstly, since this is the only garment in this post still in our possession (apart from the Grim Reaper come burqa outfit, that is); a cardigan I knitted for Craig. It is knitted in the fair isle method. Above is a picture Craig took of me wearing his cardigan on a holiday last year (isn’t he sweet, giving his cold inadequately-dressed wife his nicely pre-warmed cardigan to wear, hmmm? What a gentleman!)

And some close-ups of the cardigan I took today…

showing the right front, and at right the wrong side of the fair isle knitting… (as is correct, the yarn is carried over at the back with no weaving in, only if the distance is four stitches or less…)

Now, some costumes…
Sam as “Link”. I thought he was so cute in this. He loved this little outfit and often wore it just for everyday wear. (if you would like to see what this cute little jigger looks like now, go here…)

Sam, as… guess who? Hehe, the famous Harry Potter, natch, compete with broomstick and Hedwig the owl.
On that note, a black cloak is such a useful thing to have in the dress-up box. It can be the basis for so many costumes.

Here is the same robe again, worn by Cassie as Hermione, complete with ~~Garfield~~ Crookshanks the cat… I threw together the skirt and tie as well, but they do not bear close inspection…!)

(I’ve shown this picture before… but here it is again just to illustrate the versatility of the plain black robe as a costume), Tim and two of his mates as Grim Reapers. I made all three of their costumes.

Tim’s same costume again, this time worn by me to an Arabian Nights party. I didn’t want to hire an outfit and I didn’t want to make some bejewelled thing I would never wear again, and as every single female I have seen in the Arabian region is dressed something like this, so I was like, yeah this’ll do. I naively assumed other girls would have the same idea… As it turned out I was literally the only female dressed (I thought) anywhere near authentically! Also the only one not heavily sequinned and baring plenty of belly-flesh… I confess the costume was abandoned when we decided to start dancing! Don’t worry I had a skirt and top on underneath…

So, away from costumes now, and a ball-gown of my own design that I made for balls in years gone by (Sorry for the headless shot but my face and my hair look awful in this picture…!) It is silk organza, overlaying silk and silk jersey layers, three layers in all. It had a beaded and embroidered neckpiece, both beaded and embroidered by me, that is…

A dress I made for Cassie for her graduation dance at the end of primary school. It was a simple turquoise cotton halter neck dress, the fabric had metallic gold lines randomly strewn across. I also made her jewellery, of turquoise glass fish beads and strands of gold wire.

Some rather lovely (if I say so myself) wide-legged white pants that she wore almost constantly for a summer, and a little white broderie anglaise blouse. Both my own design.

Going way back, and this shirt is from a Vogue designer pattern that I believe my mother still has my copy… I know I also made and am wearing here the small-waisted and very flared skirt from the same pattern too…

I made both the skirt and top and also my necklace here. The top was an experiment, I flipped the shoulders out in a twist to get this cowl-like effect. It used to get a lot of compliments, believe it or not! (my friends are very kind) We are sitting on one of our sofas in its first slipcover, made by me too… (now looks like this)

Some more dresses. I really regret now I never got any good pictures of these two. The white and red one was rather nice; it was a dress, but looked like a matching skirt and camisole when I was wearing it, as it had layers in several graduated lengths. My own design. The patchwork dress, also my own design, took lots of planning; I bought the fabrics separately and cut and pieced them together, then made the dress. It has smaller squares at the top, graduating to larger squares around the midriff, and then down to the largest squares at the hemline. It is all on the bias, with a handkerchief hem, and I loved it!

A drop waisted, handkerchief hemmed dress of white dotted swiss voile, pictured against a famous backdrop. I still have this Vogue pattern too, actually…

And that should be all folks!
From now on, I will only be showing newly made stuff here….

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ancient history, ballgown, cardigan, Cassie, childrens, costumes, dress, evening wear, fancy dress, Knitted, knitting, own design, patchwork, Sam, Tim, top

Weddings, parties, and other special events…

27/08/2011 4:23 am \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

… seem to be the only times we ever took any photos of our family. So thank goodness for those!
I didn’t do a heck of a lot of sewing when I had three tiny children. I do have an excuse. I had three tiny children…
But I did manage to churn out a few little things. Oh including, come to think of it, the quilts for all our beds. They were major. So I guess I still got a lot done.
Here are some other things:
Book Week wasn’t a big thing when my children were little like it seems to be now. But I recall a few sporadic requirements for costumes. I didn’t make this fabulous dog costume, loaned from a friend, but I did make the little top and pinafore that my grubby little daughter is wearing in the background. Another TopKids pattern.

Here on the left is an outfit made just for Sam (see, he didn’t miss out!), a tartan button-up shirt and some navy corduroy jeans with some of the tartan using in the detailing, to make it a co-ordinating “outfit”. I was into “outfits” for my kids back then, and always made tops and bottoms to match each other. Both were using TopKids patterns.

Following are three little dresses I made for my daughter, using the same Simplicity pattern, a very nice design which had a button-up front bodice, and a sash inserted in the side seams to cinch in the waist with a lovely big bow at the back. Or a rough knot of some kind, depending on how busy her mother was that morning…

I customised the pink gingham version with lace edged pockets. It was one of my favourite dresses for her at this time.

The blue one here had gold stars printed on the fabric, and I sewed on a single star shaped button at the top, like a brooch. In this picture, her first day at pre-school, she is standing beside a white wooden chair that Craig made, and I painted. It was made of jarrah, so it weighed a tonne!

And my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding… I made the two bridesmaids dresses and the flower girls dress. And yes, now I do wonder at my own sanity at attempting this feat when I had all those little children underfoot at home… but I managed it! (Sorry about the grainy picture, but this is the only one I have of all three of us)

(This isn’t necessarily illustrating any extra in the way of handmade-ness, but I included it because I just really love this picture. This is my wonderful family, including my parents, my two brothers and my two sisters-in-law)

The two bridesmaids dresses were from a Vogue pattern, and had boned bodices, with a lovely and very flattering folded portrait neckline. I hand-sewed on all that gold lace, and miraculously got the motifs to fit perfectly on the two different sizes so I would not have to chop any in half. Cassie’s little flower girl dress was adorable, and had a miniature sweetheart neckline, big puffy sleeves, cascading ruffles down the back of the skirt and a big bow tied in the small of her back. Sigh… both my dress and hers have been passed on, and I only have C’s dress (the other bridesmaid), which is pictured below. It is a bigger size than Bessie who is modelling it here, thus necessitating Cassie’s hand you can see there unobtrusively pulling it in at the back to illustrate what it actually looks like when it fits the wearer.
Of course now I look at it and see multitude little imperfections, but at the time I was pretty darn proud of myself.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ancient history, bridesmaids, Cassie, childrens, dress, Sam, Tim, Topkids

Oh, this old thing…

17/08/2011 11:16 am \ 18 Comments \ Carolyn

… and a few more old creations. (Don’t worry, these are drawing to an inevitable endpoint, as I go forwards through time and eventually wind up at “now”, at which point these posts will finish and you will be seeing new stuff only… It’s just that one of the goals I set myself was to document as much as I could of my handmade things in this blog, so bear with me here. This is a finite process…)
This is our little family (Sam on the way) in more stuff I made; Tim’s (Topkids) overall has been seen before here. I made my dress, completely inspired by the dress (below) in Beetlejuice, do you remember this? I basically fell in love with this loose long floral dress and set out to make myself close to an exact copy of it for myself. Fortuitously it worked well as a maternity dress too. I felt lucky that dropped waist blouse-y Laura Ashley numbers were quite fashionable during the years I was producing children…
The blue floral dress with lace trim that Cassie is wearing is a TopKids pattern.

source

Below is a four generation picture; my grandmother, mother, Cassie and me. Cassie is wearing a dress made to the same pattern as the blue one above. It is interesting how the very different fabrics used give each dress a completely different feel; this one seems kinda “smart” while the floral and lace above give a far more “pretty and dressy enough for a party” feel, no? Perhaps this tiny set of two dresses makes up another miniature rogue’s gallery (like yesterday), seeing the different looks you can get from one pattern by varying minor details; in this case the fabric.

This little romper is literally the only thing that I made for my own children and passed on to other little relatives that was returned to me (!) but unfortunately without the little blouse I had made to go with it. It had a really cute pink blouse to wear underneath, with a Peter Pan collar and full batwing sleeves gathered into elasticated wrists. The little floral romper here has a zip up the centre front and tabs with pearl snaps on the pockets and shoulder straps. From TopKids patterns.

Below is a picture of Tim and Cassie on Tim’s fourth birthday (Sam is around by now, but is not in this picture!) Cassie is wearing a dress that was truly one of my favourites, out of all that I had made for her! It was of a lovely floral brushed cotton in very pretty shades of blue, green and violet, and had a sailor collar of soft ivory brushed cotton, around which I topstitched on a pale blue satin ribbon edging to enhance the sailor-y look. I loved seeing her in this dress…. she looks so pretty, doesn’t she?

Below; I am with Tim and a fairly brand new Sam in a baby sling… Tim is wearing a red-and-white fair isle jumper knitted by my Mum, and I am wearing a blue, turquoise, red and pink cardigan with black and white geckoes that I knitted from a pattern, the details of which are unknown, sorry. It is knitted entirely in the intarsia method, with each section of colour in each row, in individual balls (ie, that is 15 different balls for some rows…), and is possibly the most complex thing I have ever knitted. Each row of the pattern was different from each other row, as you can imagine. Even the two sleeves were different from each other! The main of the knitting is in stocking stitch, but the red and pink sections are in reverse stocking stitch… my modern-day me is actually pretty impressed with my olden-day more-patient me.
I am embarrassed to admit that I went on to lose all appreciation of my own time and effort, and painted the entire interior of a house while wearing this thing, which explains some tiny spots of white paint now adorning the front. Also it has gone camping with us (and I recall wearing it 24/7 including sleeping in it on one particularly cold camping trip) and it has been a bed-jacket too. I still have it, but needless to say don’t really wear it anymore. It has slightly felted, through bad washing.
(Later edit; in reply to some comments, it’s a bit hazy in my memory now but I’m pretty sure I made this before I had little kiddies underfoot… just no pictures!)

below; the wrong side, showing the intarsia method of knitting used…

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ancient history, Cassie, childrens, knitting, Sam, Tim, Topkids

Thanks for the memories…

08/08/2011 9:17 am \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

…and all I can say that if it wasn’t for Christmas and birthday family get-togethers I would have almost no photos of my children in the clothes I have made them… these photos are all from the albums of our extended family, since we took very few ourselves!, and please be aware that the photos I have here on my blog represent about ten percent of the clothes I actually made for my children! Of course I am disappointed that my photo taking was pretty slack in those days. Photography wasn’t really on my radar back then. Too busy taking care of my little ones and the household, no doubt. Oh, and er, fitting in a bit of sewing too, I guess!
In the Christmas gathering pictured here, Tim is wearing a little ensemble comprising a white collarless button up shirt and tartan trousers. The tartan pants have contrasting white piping in a curved insert in the side of the legs, and along each front pocket; and the shirt has tartan piping in the buttonband, plus a few tartan patches for good measure to really tie the whole outfit together.

The children’s cousin Michelle is wearing a little pink dress I had made her for a previous birthday; it had a button-up front, dropped waist, an attached white petticoat, and white sleeve cuffs and collar. In the middle picture I am wearing white shorts and a big oversized (in the best 90’s tradition) blouse, both made by me.

Cassie is wearing a little dress and a big floppy gingham hat, both made by me. The dress has smocking and embroidered grub roses on the front, and is one of the very few pieces of children’s clothing I have kept so I can include a close-up. I was pretty proud of the smocking, and I can still recall obsessing over mastering the perfect grub rose in between chatting-while-supervising, fruit-cutting and nappy-changing sessions at playgroup. The partially finished dress lived in the nappy bag so that I could be sure it accompanied us wherever we went and I could snatch a few more minutes working on it if the opportunity presented itself…
All the children’s patterns are TopKids patterns, except for Cassie’s smocked dress which was some sort of heirloom pattern, the exact details of which I have no memory.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ancient history, childrens, Topkids

Another trip down memory lane…

31/07/2011 8:59 am \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

… Remember when I said I had only once before made Cassie and myself matching clothes? Well this is Cassie’s dress, that was made from the leftover scraps of a dress I had made myself. Her little dress, made using a TopKids pattern, has a white Peter Pan collar, and a miniature faux man’s tie in turquoise fabric, itself the leftovers from these shorts (so you can see how long I hang onto scraps…!) I’m sorry it’s not a very good picture, and what’s more I have no pics of my own dress in this fabric; but imagine this maroon, deep turquoise and red large-scale plaid in one of those 90’s style shirt-dresses with a high small collar, long sleeves and a big full gathered skirt. Something like the red version of this pattern at right… yes, very very very 90’s. I hope I haven’t shattered any delusions of myself as a style maven now! At least I never liked shoulder pads so never used them.

So I’ve got that going for me… (Can anyone recognise that quote?)

Tim is wearing here a little jumper here that I knitted for him using scraps of wool from other projects… rather cleverly eked out if I say so myself, so that the front, back and both sleeves had the same colours and in the same proportions! Knitters will know this is not necessarily a simple thing to achieve when you are working with scraps… It went from the dark shades of purple, blue and green at the bottom through grey, then pale blue then the palest yellow and back to navy blue at the top, and the colours were not in defined stripes but faded together in an ombre effect. I did this by knitting two colours together per row in the fair-isle knitting method.

In this picture, Tim is wearing another jumper I knitted, and I can’t recall now if it was from a pattern or if I took the embroidered teddy bear design from a cross stitch and just transposed it to a knitwear graph… yup, memory not what it used to be! Again using scraps for the teddies. Cassie is wearing a little dress I made for her using a TopKids pattern. It was in two different white and navy blue prints, one a polka dot and the other a floral. The fabric was slightly fluffy, brushed cotton, and I sewed in white piping around the collar, sleeve cuffs, the single curved breast pocket and around the dropped waistline where the buttoned-up blouse joined the skirt part of the dress. It was quite cute, no? and a nice and warm little number for winter!

And the quote? From that great 90’s cinema classic, Caddyshack.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ancient history, Cassie, childrens, dress, jumper, knitting, own design, Tim, Topkids

Featuring small versions of Tim and Cassie…

23/07/2011 4:40 am \ 10 Comments \ Carolyn

Whizzing back a few years now…
and here are some more of the little outfits I made for my children when they were small. These were “good” outfits, but of course I used to dress my children in good outfits on a day-to-day basis anyway, reasoning that they wouldn’t fit into them for very long! So these clothes were worn to parties, to playgroup, to picnics, as well as for playing in the sandpit at home and to the beach; anywhere. We’re not the sort of family to ever be precious about our clothes. Oh, OK then… with the exception of that Chanel style coat, I admit it.
These designs were all from TopKids magazines. I still have all nine of the magazines I bought, although none of the patterns I traced out! They were such wonderful magazines.. ooer, I’ve probably said that a few, or a dozen, times before, haven’t I? I’ve got this tendency to rave about them, sorry. Such a pity they were discontinued. I’ve never seen such great, trendy, funky, interesting little children’s patterns anywhere else since.

The dress Cassie is wearing has a few rows of smocking on the bodice and a little white Peter Pan collar, on which I hand embroidered a few flowers, stems and leaves mimicking the design in the floral. Another cute little dress that has gone, goodness knows where…
Tim’s outfit was a little short overall, of a light denim fabric and with patches of a thickish checked cotton. I was pretty proud of this, and he wore it tonnes of times, until it got holes in the bottom… That red button sewn on the front is an aeroplane.

The button-up boxy little jacket is of the same light denim fabric, and has contrasting fabric for the pocket flaps and the hoodie part of it. The contrasting fabric is printed with cheerful hippos setting sail in sailing boats.