Preteen jammies and freshly licked walls

Yes, you read the post title correctly...but I'll get into that in a bit!

JBug has had a few more growth spurts recently (ack!) and so the poor guy only has a couple pairs of jammies left, and even those should really head to the donation box soon! I don't sew nearly as often for him, as I'm always concerned that he's not going to deem what I've made "cool enough" to wear. He's at that stage already. o_O

But he swears he still loves the things I make for him...which isn't that much sadly *rapping my own knuckles with the side of a ruler as punishment*. ;)

So we dug through the stash for a tester pair of Pajama Party PJs. With all the growth spurts he's gone through I wasn't sure which size would fit, but we managed to eek out a pair in size 10 from the robot fabric and co-ordinate that we found! They fit perfectly, but they don't' have much growing room - and we already know he's doing a lot of that lately - so from now on I need to sew him size 12s!!!

                    

The fabric is cotton woven (nice and cool for the summer) and I used snaps as closures. I gave him the choice of either buttons or snaps, and he chose snaps. They're quick and easy to attach, even easier now that I found the metal snap dies for my snap press, and as it turns out I wouldn't have been able to make the buttonholes easily anyway. My favorite machine's automatic buttonhole foot seems to be in hiding, and my other machine suddenly has a broken buttonhole foot guide. Sigh. 

Every now and then I get a glimpse of the man he is quickly becoming. For example in this photo where you can see his neck is a little wider, a little more "teen-like". Sniff.

He has tried wearing these for 5 nights in a row (eew!) and when I caught him avoiding the wash basket he confessed: "But they're just SO comfortable! I just want to keep wearing them!". That's great son, that really is....but how about I wash them and have them back to you before bed, hmm?? ;)

Take one like this Mom!


Oooh, you're in a modelling mood! Let the games begin!
*I pretended to be a fancy fashion photographer and took lots of rapid succession photos while laughing just a tiny bit like an evil villain in an animated film, and this is what the poor boy looked like!

Stop!! Stop!!!Ahhh! The flash!!!


And then I looked over at the littlest minion, who had been next to his big brother the whole time...and this is what I saw.....

Anyone want to guess what he's doing?

And that's the story of how the " No licking the walls" rule came about! ;)

Roly Poly Pinafore Tag-a-long

Seeing as I'm not officially part of the Roly-Poly-Along blog tour, I decided it wasn't right to make it seem as though I was. So tag-a-long it is!

I was so sweetly gifted this pattern, The Roly-Poly Pinafore by Imagine Gnats, by someone very dear to me, so how could I not jump on this bandwagon and sew one up right away?!

First we have the cutest look: The winter wardrobe...complete with summer flowers in the background!

She LOVES the pockets!

Pointing at pretty flowers so that I could capture the back.

Eeeek! Mommy there are BEES!

Then we decided to show off the reverse.

The reverse with a little pair of denim shorts. Perfect for the hot Texas weather that's come to town lately.
And just in case you are wondering, those are full sleeves of fake tattoos!

The back. Nice and airy, yet still covered enough to be appropriate in public. And you can see her back piece peeking out at the top!

And finally with a skirt.

The last look. A pretty little girlie in summer skirt and pinafore.

I followed the recommendation of choosing the size to sew by Missy's measurements instead of her RTW size. The size 4 will fit her now and all through winter as well. She usually wears a 5T, but the 4 fits perfectly!

I did overcast the hidden side seams and pocket edges, as I just couldn't bring myself to leave them raw. I used iron-on interfacing on the areas that would receive buttons and buttonholes. I added it right before turning the pinafore right side out. It adds strength to those areas and lessens the chance of Missy ripping the straps, like when she's rough-housing with her brothers.

She LOVES her pinny and it's pockets are a hit with her! I think it'd be fun to make a few print corduroy ones for the winter, to wear over some basic, solid color, long sleeves. Over even some solid pinafores to wear over bright or print knit shirts! 

All in all it is a very cute pattern and I am sure you'll enjoy the end result as much as I do!