maker*land.

I don't know what it is with me and nautical themes lately when it comes to making clothes for the little one.  Nor the need to make summery-type things when it is either absolutely arctic outside, or miniature cyclones are blowing through my yard ripping my lovely trees apart.  I'm no doubt subconsciously yearning to be anywhere else at the moment - the sunny days are freezing cold, and when it's warmer, the weather frequently gets rather frightening, with severe weather warnings taking up much of the evening news, and neighbours' patios and letterboxes rolling down the street in the middle of the night.

I have wanted to buy Sophie a nice Breton top for some time - they are so classic! - but I can't really justify spending sixty dollars on one t-shirt which will probably spend most of its days covered in peanut butter and texta marker.

This little t-shirt is made from one of my old maternity tees, and some promotional tank top the pharmacy was giving away when we were buying cough medicine and other germ-busting drugs.  It was advertising a new type of whey-powder or something.  Who cares, whatever  - free fabric!  Wooo!

I cut the skirt bit from the maternity tee and threw the top bit away.  I just needed the bottom unbranded bit of the tank top, so cut it across under the armholes and the upper bit of that went into the bin too.  The side seams were then cut, so I had two flat squares from each garment.   I joined the plain white and striped fabric in pairs, and then used my new half stripe-half plain fabric to cut the pattern pieces.  The sleeves were cut using the original hem of the promotional tee, because I am lazy and I hate hemming (I have many garments hanging about in my room that are all but finished except for hems.)

You can see in the above photo the difference in the whites of both fabrics.  That maternity t-shirt got an absolute hammering when I was pregnant, but the promo tee was never worn.  Once I made the Sophie's new shirt, it was given a good soak in some Napisan, and came out looking pretty much a very bright and consistent white.

But this is a shirt for Sophie, so it's pretty much a dead certainty it won't remain that way.