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Merino boys tops - Simplicity 5271.

My son has gone to the U.K. with his Dad to see the rellies (relatives) for Christmas. This is his second time to go - the first being when he was just over 2 years old, 8 years ago. He loves the cold so he's not bothered about that, but his Mother is.

I made Burda t-shirt 151 03/2013 in August and he really loves it but I found it a little short on the length and since August he has grown taller so I made a test shirt by adding about 2cm seam allowance and then sewed it up on the overlocker without cutting to the original seam line... making it a bit bigger.  I also put the neck band on back to front so that it curls on the front. I like that. My son loved the t-shirt, but said he wanted it a little bigger under the arms.  It was a bit of a surprise that he liked it as I bought that fabric years ago from the op shop and it was in the scraps bag by the door.  (there was 2 pieces about 75cm each) I thought it was a bit thin and kind of nondescript but as I've said here before my son likes very understated t-shirts.



Above is the t-shirt in action - I didn't do a good job on the hems of the sleeves or hem - just zig zagged as I thought he wouldn't like it but he does and he's a boy and doesn't notice these things. This is with my Mum and Dad the night before he left. He wanted to have oysters with Dad and then see the Christmas lights together, so that's what we did.



These shirts are the real deal. I made them from merino I bought at The Fabric Store in the end of winter sale this year. I bought it specifically for this purpose. They were $8 per metre from memory so that makes a very, very cheap merino t-shirt. Even now in the sales they are going for about $60 each.

They grey one is a slightly thinner, bit scratchy wool but the blue one is soft like butter and super comfy. I couldn't use the Burda pattern as I figured if I was making the shirts, I'd want them to fit him for our winter so I had to buy another pattern. Spotlight was having a 5 Simplicity patterns for $10 (unheard of here) so I bought 5 patterns - one was Simplicity 5271. Sorry about the computer reverse photo... I just wanted to show the pattern and this was the quickest way (I left my camera at a friend's house).

I have not matched up the stripes, as is hugely noticeable on the grey one, but the funny thing is that I tried! I have normally matched up stripes pretty well, but obviously my tired brain didn't register the matching points at all so this is what we have. I think my son will wear them as sweatshirts rather than t-shirt on the skin because of their larger size.



It's a really simple pattern but it is suitable for the whole family. For some reason, and I didn't notice this until I came home, it has a dog bed and cap pattern included! It comes in child/teen and teen/adult and I think I made the smallest teen/adult size as the largest child/teen was the same size as the Burda also. The other pattern I bought which was a little more fancy (Simplicity 2318) has only boys or men sizes and again the largest boys was the same size and wouldn't fit in our winter. Strangely this pattern had a dog coat included! It has a fancier raglan sleeve i.e. two piece sleeve so you can contrast fabrics but in the end it was better to just get them made. I left it to the last minute on purpose so I could get the sizing right. 

The other patterns I bought were 1796 dress pattern, 2475 Amazing Fit skirt and 1417 Amazing Fit dress. Hopefully I will get lots of jobs and sewing done while my son is away. I'm looking for work so some office appropriate clothing that fits is what I'm hoping to get made.

Comments

Kyle said…
Nice shirts, Summer Flies!
I too have noticed the amt of dog related items that come with pajama patterns, it's really quite funny. Even Fido can get in on all the unisex pajama action.
katherine h said…
What lovely family shots! Very useful sewing

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