Monday 10 February 2014

Baby tartan

My first make for our wee one - I wanted to make him something special to wear to attend his first wedding.  As his dad was the best man I thought it would be lovely to make him something tartan to go with his dad's kilt.  I was kindly offered some scraps of the tartan wool used to make the groom and best man's kilts so I decided on turn-ups for a pair of trousers.  Rather than go out and buy some trousers to attach them to I used Made by Rae's free newborn trouser pattern.  I think this is really meant for woven fabrics but figured as long as I measure it against a pair of his own trousers I'd be fine making it out of jersey.  I did consider real turn-ups but I couldn't work out how to do them, and the tartan frayed something terrible!  Afterwards I was told that tartan is usually cut on the bias for kilt making for that very reason.  So what I did was cut a rectangle of tartan for each leg, sew it at the side seam then fold it in half and attach it the same way you would a neck or arm band on a jersey t-shirt - by putting the raw edges together stitching then pressing it out.  It looks like a turn-up as long as you don't look too closely and was very quick to do - which, given I was doing this the evening before the wedding, was essential!  I did a jersey waistband as well, attached in the same way.  They did turn out too long but at least you could still see the tartan.  At the last minute I decided to make him a matching bow-tie and he looked absolutely adorable! The bow-tie was just stitched on to a white t-shirt, don't worry I didn't make him wear anything uncomfortable!





I totally forgot to take any close-ups of him at the wedding as he was only actually there for a few hours (we were very lucky that his Grandma and Grandpa brought him along to the reception for a few hours then looked after him at the hotel so we could stay for the dinner and party!)  So I got him dressed up in it again and tried to take some photos.  You can see he thought I was pretty silly for doing so!



These were such a quick make and I really enjoyed it - I can't wait to make him more clothes!  Does anyone have any favourite patterns they would recommend? There seems to be far more patterns for cute dresses and skirts than for clothes suitable for a baby boy.  I was given the black jersey by a friend as it was left over from a project of hers and the tartan is offcuts from the kilt so although I didn't use anything from my stash at least I didn't add to it! I know I'm totally biased but I thought he was the best dressed guy there - asides from the groom and best man of course!