Children’s Corner Alex

I went on a bit of a Children’s Corner Pattern’s, “Alex” kick for my last round of sewing. I have now made six of these and cannot sing the Alex’ praises enough. I love sewing for my nieces and nephews, particularly around Christmas, so I jumped at an opportunity to make coordinating cousin ensembles.

Last Christmas I made a skirted jumper by modifying the Children’s Corner Robert pattern. Link here for how I pulled that off. That was before Children’s Corner came out with the Alex pattern.

If you’re not ready to commit to the Alex, give that tutorial a spin and let me know how it goes. This year I got a hankering to make a similar jumper using the Alex pattern (much less of a stretch) and a couple of the Alex rompers for four special cousins.

To start with I chose a heavy-weighted flannel for the Alex jumpers and a coordinating plaid. When the fabric arrived I realized that my initial intentions of using the plaid as the blouse would be incredibly overwhelming and opted to use a white pimalene for the blouse and skirt lining. When making Maria and her cousin Roberta’s jumpers I aimed for this look (see below) but wasn’t crazy about the pleats or the bow in the back. To bring my vision to fruition, I used the Alex skirt, omitted the bib, and lengthened the straps. I used Maria as a guide for how long to lengthen the straps.

I achieved this look by making covered buttons and splitting my lengthened Alex straps in two, using the flannel for the shorter front and the plaid for the longer back. I also widened the Alex straps a scosh (about 1/4 of an inch) and gathered them in the back before attaching them to the skirt.

I changed the Alex’ Peter Pan color into a ruffle collar…to be very honest, I’m not exactly certain how to explain what I did it just yet…I’ll do it again and make a tutorial.

For the two little kiddo’s outfits (Robby and Ophelia) I made the Alex romper. Both littles are crawling/rolling/scooting all over the place so the romper seemed to be the most appropriate choice. I used the version with the snapped crotch. I did Robby’s in this corduroy and his cousin’s in this plaid.

I planned Ophelia’s outfit first and knew I wanted it to be multicolored and have the other kid’s outfits coordinate. When shopping at farmhousefabrics.com I ran across the plaid. One of the nice things about this plaid is that it goes so well with the hunter green and the navy. It also goes very well with this Robert Kaufman red featherwale corduroy.

One of the reasons I love this pattern is because it adds the crotch extension. It lays extremely well on babies with diapers while still being practical. So much so, that I think I may be adding an extension to patterns that don’t have one in the future.

Another thing I love about this pattern is that the shirt seems to be a bit longer than other Children’s Corner Patterns. Neither of the big girls had any issues with their shirts coming out of their skirts…no small feat!

To polish off the look, Maria wore these socks, these shoes, and this hair bow. Robby wore these shoes, which I stole during the Black Friday sales and LOVE. Hope y’all get some inspiration from these outfits-they were so fun to make.

Random fun product of the day: recently my friend (Margy Hood) told me about this giant lint roller she has been using in her sewing room…this thing is GENIUS. I’ve been using it to pick up all the thread and little fabric bits that fall while I’m sewing…it saves your vacuum cleaner some serious heartache. And let’s get real, who wants to cut the thread off the rollers every two weeks?