A Pattern Circus-Children’s Corner Banded Parker, Alex Blouse, Kathy Dykstra Diaper Set, and Primrose Lane Michaela.
Sometimes, when shopping for fabric, I ask for input for my kids. Its not very often, but on occasion, they’re allowed to have an opinion. When I chose this Liberty of London Isaac’s Jubilee Lawn, I asked Robby (pictured below) if he liked it, and he actually gasped. The kid knows about fifteen words, so a gasp is a pretty big deal in our world. This fabric was promptly added to my Farmhouse Fabric’s cart.
When the fabric arrived, it was love at first sight. For everyone. Maria (pictured below), Robby and I couldn’t get enough. We loved it so much, we had no idea what we wanted it to be. Maria had some strong opinions and I had no strong opinions. It was allowed to sit on my sewing table until it was ready to tell me what it was.
When the fabric finally decided it needed to be shirts, I went to work finding the correct coordinating fabric and patterns. The accent fabric needed to be subtle and classic. The circus design is definitely not subtle, so I didn’t want the shorts to be super loud and try to compete. I ended up choosing this butter fabric finders twill for Robby’s bottoms and a denim for Maria’s.
Maria’s outfit was the most clear in my head. So I started with it. I love the look of the banded Children’s Corner Parker Shorts and knew she would get a ton of wear out of a denim version. Children’s corner has a sew along on how to create this look using the Parker’s Pants pattern. Her top is their Alex blouse in a size 5 with no modifications. I used a white Spechler Vogel lawn for the collar and added baby interfacing to both the top and bottom layers of the collar. The collar was self-piped with the Liberty.
I recently did Kathy Dykstra’s diaper set for John Luke (my baby due in three weeks) and realized Robby’s days were numbered with this pattern. The pattern only goes up to a size 12 months. Robby is 17 months now and fairly small for his age, so adding some length and width to the top and bottoms did the trick to make this pattern work. I decided to pipe the top in the butter twill and the bottoms in a white satin batiste piping leftover from a different project. I stuck with white plastic buttons on both, because again, the fabric (and Robby) needed to be the star of the show. FYI Kathy Dykstra just released a new version of this pattern with different tops-it is SO cute. You can find it here.
Baby John Luke’s outfit was probably the trickiest for me to figure out. I wasn’t sure that the fabric would be appropriate for a newborn but wanted to coordinate him with his siblings. I opted to make a primrose Michaela bubble using white Spechler Vogel lawn and DMC floss to match the colors found in the circus fabric The color is piped in the yellow butter fabric to match Robby’s diaper shorts. I have created several videos on this garment and will elaborate more on it in the future.
I’m hoping these outfit give each child the sense that they were designed for each individual. Not just that I wanted them all to match, but tried to do patterns that suited their needs/preferences…without really letting them have much input LOL.
You will not be seeing the end of these…soon to come is a tutorial on how I eased and set the sleeves on the Diaper Set. And possibly a tutorial on putting the piping in the Michaela using French seams.
Also, if this fabric speaks to you too, Southern Baby Classics has several embroidery files that coordinate with it well. This seal almost ended up on Maria’s collar 🙂
