Tag Archives: Tim

A navy corduroy jacket, and a Babar jumper

25/05/2011 11:18 am \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

Today I bring two flashbacks; two, because I don’t have very good photos of either one to warrant an individual post, and because I am trying to whizz through these old projects a little faster than I have been up until now… These items are both things I made for Tim when he was about two.
The first is a little navy blue corduroy biker-styled jacket that zipped up the front (biker-styled… for a two year old, lol!), which I toddler-ised by using contrasting red for the collar and trimmings, the pattern from a Topkids magazine. Even though Tim wore it a lot, this is the best photo I have of it…

And the second is a little jumper that I knitted using a pattern from a Women’s Weekly magazine. Babar is embroidered on the front over the knitting stitches. He wore this a lot… and I have heaps of photos of him wearing this, but these are the only ones even vaguely showing off that embroidery! The lower picture, taken at Lake Mountain in Victoria, is the first time these sandgropers had ever ever seen snow in our lives! We made a little snowman!
(translation: sandgropers = Western Australians)

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

Tim’s 2nd birthday outfit

03/05/2011 5:52 am \ 8 Comments \ Carolyn

The main problem with my attempt to document my handmade stuff, including some of the things I made for the children way back when they were little is that I neglected to take good pictures of things. Things, some of them perfectly lovely, of which I was very proud, and which I no longer have in my possession. I do have an excuse; my younger self was blissfully unaware that my older self would be wanting to do this blog one day…. I know, lame excuse. But it’s the only one I have, so I’m going there.
So one can blame my lack of future foretelling ability for the poor illustrative quality of these photos with relation to how well you can see the actual clothes; ie. not very well. Hopefully you can still get a vague idea how cute this particular ensemble was…
I made for Tim this outfit, for his second birthday; comprising checked pants with contrasting red pocket yokes and a red hoodie with flannelette teddy bear print sleeves and the same fabric lining the hood. Both pants and hoodie patterns were from those marvellous Topkids magazines. It was a sweet outfit, I was pretty thrilled with how it turned out (my first attempt at a hoodie if I remember correctly) and he wore it a lot. Even Cassie wore it when she got big enough to fit into it! (see below) It had two asymmetrically placed decorative patches on the front of the hoodie ( hey, this was the early 90’s, when random asymmetry was in and actually done on purpose sometimes…) around which I carefully stitched frames of matching royal blue rick-rack.
I wonder where it is now…
The hoodie…

a better view of the pants… (goodness knows what possessed me to put this horrible top on him, doesn’t go at all with the pants…. I must have just grabbed something clean that day with absolutely no thought as to whether or not my son looked sharp, tut tut)

Cassie wearing the outfit…

And yes, I made that sad excuse for a birthday cake above too… well, I do not claim to be either a great cook or cake decorator! It was a clock face, and the time was set to 2 o’clock, for a 2 year old of course!
If you’re interested, my little boy looks like this now, and my little girl with the cheeky grin looks like this…

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

Little yacht romper

22/02/2011 4:08 am \ 10 Comments \ Carolyn

A blast from the past for today…
This is a little romper suit I made for our eldest Tim when he was tiny. I have no memory of where I got the pattern, it might have been a TopKids design, but I do have a very vague feeling I just saw it in some Women’s Weekly crafty publication, hehe. It had a pocket at the front with two appliqued yachts, edged with zigzag stitch and with red satin stitching to represent the hulls, and some tiny little embroidered flags at the top of the sails. Turned up cuffs and lining, in contrasting yellow.
It was a nice little thing that all three of mine wore, but this is the only photo I have, of Tim wearing it. If you would like to see what this cute little kiddie looks like now, go here…

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

Tim’s shirt

29/12/2010 1:25 am \ 13 Comments \ Carolyn

This is a shirt I made for our eldest son for a Christmas present. I didn’t need to be secret working on this one, as he was working up in Kalgoorlie up until only a few days before Christmas.
I’m glad he got a job where he is earning some good money but I did really miss him… oh dear, empty nest syndrome coming on already? sad… 🙁
Anyway, we are making the most of him being home now. And he has probably at least another year of Uni at home.
This fabric was a bit of a *&%# to work with. Excuse my French. I’ve had it for about a year, toyed with various projects in my mind, possibly a shirt for Craig, draping it over Bessie to get inspired for something for me etc. and finally came to terms with the fact Tim was the best one in the house to carry off this “deconstructed businessman” fabric. The fabric is heat set into random crazy creases, and is slightly stretchy, thus the %$#@ factor, have you ever tried fine precision tailoring with stretchy or pre-creased fabric?? And I like for mens’ shirts to be well tailored… well, I just had to accept the quirks of this fabric and go with it as best I could. I think I wrestled it into some sort of submission with minimal meltdown on my own behalf. Anyhow I’m very happy with how it finally turned out. And most importantly Tim likes it too. He wore it on Christmas Day, and has worn it out to two other parties with his friends since, so must do!
The pattern is Burda 7767 again, this time made up pretty much as is but with narrower sleeve cuffs, the addition of two breast pockets with asymmetrical flaps, a long curved hem and the use of navy blue snaps in lieu of buttons.
I also added this iron-on “raging bull” motif. Hehe, this is kind of funny because there is no one less like a raging bull than Tim… It is actually one of a series of horoscope signs, and Tim is not even a Taurus, but meh… I liked the colours of this motif against the colours of the shirt, and I thought it needed a little extra something to make it less formal and wicked enough for a young bloke.

Details:
Shirt; Burda 7767, pattern review here, cotton with probably a spot of spandex for stretch?

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burda 7767, Fabulous fabrics, mens shirt, Tim

Winterblue shirt

18/06/2010 8:48 am \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

You’ve heard of “wintergreen”? Well I’ve decided this is “winterblue”! You know, a sort of arctic colour scheme and with the snowflake-like print ‘n all…?
Today is my son Tim’s birthday, so of course I had to make him a shirt like his brother’s, see here… Tim really feels the cold so I made his out of warm-as-toast plaid cotton flannel, a fabric that caused a few queries about the “pyjamas” I was making but in keeping with my surfwear research of the other week!, and using Burda 7767 (yes, again…) Again I used press studs in lieu of buttons throughout, and added a tab inside the sleeves so he can roll his sleeves up; the preferred mode of wear. Although the cuffs and sleeve plackets are there and finished to perfection (if I say so myself!) they will probably never be seen!
Please note that the checks match up perfectly, and that the pockets are mini symmetrical works of art; patched and with the outer half placed on the diagonal, pocket flaps also on the diagonal and stripes going in the opposite direction on each side. I’m kind of obsessive with my patterns like that! Do you like the little message I put inside the yoke? I ran out of the flannel (it came in a much narrower width than I realised when buying it) and so used some of the leftover cotton from Sam’s shirt to face the pocket flaps and for the inside yoke.
He says he loves it, and is wearing it now. Happy birthday, Tim!
Today’s random picture below, an inadvertent experiment by Tim; what happens when you leave a felt-tip pen uncapped and resting overnight against a roll of absorbent toilet paper? Scroll down to find out…

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burda 7767, mens shirt, Spotlight, Tim

Birthday scarf

01/06/2010 7:18 am \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

Today is my brother’s birthday! 😀 (yay)
Since for Dad’s birthday I made him a scarf I decided to make D one too, so bought 3 balls of this lovely soft Vera Moda yarn and got knitting. Dad’s scarf was of moss stitch, you may remember my strong opinions about the both sides of scarves looking the same, :/ , thus ruling out stocking stitch… this time I went for rib; simply cast on 20 stitches and just carried on until all three balls were knitted. As it turned out this made for a looooong scarf (approx 5ft long!), no matter; my oldest son thought it was cool, worked out a cool way of arranging it and is modelling it here today (isn’t he handsome?)
I’ve been thinking about Mum’s opinion that D is a Winter and I think she’s right, so this dark dark charcoal I think will look really good on him…
The scarf was supposed to have been ready on Saturday, when we saw the family, but even though I’ve been knitting like a maniac to get it finished it just wasn’t done! So it’s been popped in the letterbox for when he gets home from work… hopefully a nice surprise!