Completed: Two Pirate Tees

It's Celebrate the BOY time over at Made by Rae and MADE! I've been following this series since it started in 2010 and credit it with getting me excited about sewing for the kids. (That and Project Run and Play, of course.) Before Celebrate the BOY, I sewed for myself. I'd never considered sewing for Lee because, well, I didn't know anything about sewing for boys. Lee had not a single mama-sewed clothing item when he was a baby.

But now precious boy clothes are everywhere! It's so neat. Dana and Rae are doing the series for the next two weeks. There's a Flikr group. And folks are tagging photos on Instagram #celebratetheboy.

I'll make most of Lee's clothes this summer. This'll be my third summer doing it, but hopefully my skills have improved each time. I've been supplementing with store-bought things - mostly Carter's (love), but he's outgrown toddler sizes and is now officially. A. Boy. in big-boy sizes. So we'll see what store-bought things end up in his drawers this year.

This pirate fabric! It's so fun! Lee is really into all things Pirate right now, so when I saw this in the Celebrate the BOY feed on Instagram, I about peed my pants. It was ordered and in my hands within three days. (more about the source below.)

You can't tell, but they were excited and loomed over me yesterday until I finished.

("Okay, we'll let you take pictures, but it's cold. And we won't look happy," said Lee. Daniel wasn't cold, but he was determined to be supportively miserable.)

Then I "poked the pirate" on their bellies.

It's so much fun to sew for these guys. They're appreciative, and they enthusiastically choose details of their clothes. (Daniel wanted a red neckband, and Lee wanted black.)

Here are more pictures that capture their personalities perfectly.

I took those yesterday before I fixed the neckband on Daniel's. Also thanks to IG, I finally mastered the knit neckband. As Caila described, it's my sewing Kryptonite. Here's the tip she offered on Instagram, courtesy of Andrea from Train to Crazy: "measure the neck opening and cut the neckband 2/3 that length. Use rib knit or interlock and it should work perfectly!"


And it did. The only challenges are a) it takes forever to rip a neckband off a store-bought t-shirt and b) if the neckband is too short and the t-shirt fabric is very lightweight, you'll end up with gathering at the neckline.


I'm glad I went through the pain of ripping (and sewing and ripping and sewing) and fixing Daniel's. And I'm glad we had beautiful park weather today. We need some Vitamin D up in here.

Most of all I'm glad to Celebrate the BOY!

Deets:
Fabric: Lightweight knit from Banberry Knits.
Pattern: Guess. (I'm officially up to 835 Flashback Skinny Tees.)
Thoughts: I just serged the cuffs and bottom. Here in a month or so I'll cut off the sleeves anyway, I figured, so why bother. If I can find black rib knit I'll add a band to the bottom of Lee's to lengthen it. He's officially outgrown the smaller Flashback Skinny pattern and wears a size 6. *sob*