It’s OK–He’s With The Band

It seems a long time since I’ve posted. I know there’s all those rules out there about how to run a successful blog, usually involving something about posting on a usual day/multiple times per week, but the only rule that really makes sense to me is that one about only posting if you have something worth sharing. Not that I don’t have things I consider posting that aren’t finished projects, but finding the time to write about the ramblings of my scattered brain is something of a challenge. In lieu of random brain wandering, I bring you my latest project. Not just one finished project, but the foundation of an entire wardrobe, thus the time lag since my last posting.

Flannel 1

After about 2 years of wearing the same clothes/size, Romeo suddenly is growing. His old school/home clothes still keep him covered, but they don’t look quite right. Not to mention that part where he’s managed to put holes in every single pair of jeans he has as he outgrows them. (Those jeans are getting refashioned in an uber-cute Cochella Festival-worthy way that I will try to share later.) I had made Romeo one pair of jeans to check the pattern. Now I’ve made him 4 more using up nearly all of the stretch denim I had in my stash. 3 are exactly alike, with the traditional gold topstitching. Another one has dark blue top-stitching, subtle but classy. (nope, no pics of that one, just one of the gold ones here.)

Flannel 2

The jeans are from Ottobre 1/2014, design #37. I added a little bit of length to the legs to give him some growing room. Also, I added some elastic (7 inches of 1 inch wide) to the back waistband. I anchored it to the waistband facing before stitching the waistband down. He has to wear a belt with the first pair I made for him, but these new ones stay up just fine without being too tight. No one at school has asked him about his jeans, which means that they are completely successful in looking like “normal” (aka ready-to-wear) jeans–the highest acheivement possible for mommy-made clothes.

Flannel 3

On a daily basis Romeo tends to wear layers, usually hoodies, but now his hoodies are getting ever so slightly too small which makes them look a little funny. He really likes Superman, so I thought maybe he’d like a Clark Kent-inspired flannel shirt to wear some of the time, since he’s not the sort to wear a Batsuit around town.

Flannel 4

The shirt is from BurdaStyle 8/2012 #152. The flannel is from my stash, originally from fashionfabricsclub.com. My ulterior motive in making him a flannel shirt was to test the fit of this pattern to see if it would make a better-fitting dress shirt than what I can find for him in ready-to-wear lately. My verdict is yes, absolutely, so I’ll be making him a few of these out of shirting fabric at some point. The plaid matching isn’t perfect, but overall, the shirt turned out pretty spectacularly.Flannel 5

Under the flannel shirt we find Jalie 2918. This is the same shirt as I had made for Pete, since the Jalie patterns have an incredible size range. I’ve made 3 of these so far for Romeo in grey, green, and black. The grey is new fabric, but the others are out of my stash. All of them are Laguna Cotton (95% cotton, 5% spandex). He says they seem extra stretchy compared to his old shirts, but that they are comfortable. I finished them up on Wednesday, and now, two days later, he has already worn all three of them.

Flannel 6

Where did he wear his new outfit? To his first concert, Foster the People. I’ve wanted to see them live for years now, and Guinevere has bestowed upon them the highest honor a 1st-grader can bestow; bucking the opinion of her peers and saying that she likes Foster the People even better than One Direction. Romeo is kind of a laid-back/stoic kind of kid a lot of the time. An expression of absolute enthusiasm for him might be a shoulder-shrug with a “yeah, I guess that’s cool.” When it came time to ask if he wanted a ticket to go to the concert with the rest of the family (minus Ace, because it was a small venue and all general admission so we needed the proportion of kids : parents to be equal) and he shrugged and said “yeah, I guess so” we took that as great excitement on his part and got him a ticket. After passing the security-check, he got tagged with a stamp.

Flannel 7

Portland concert-goers are in-general a lovely group of people. If you ask a couple of girls up against the fence in the front row whether your (short) kid can squeeze in with them, they will say “awww” and let him in. (My kids did have ear plugs which was good because we were right in front of the really giant speakers). At the risk of sounding like a complete Fangirl, it was an awesome show. (totally not zooming in on my phone camera in this pic. We were that close to the stage.)

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Romeo’s relaxed ensemble also lends itself to quick getaways if needed, perhaps from adoring fans.

Flannel 8

Maybe none of our family got pulled up on stage or handed a backstage pass (such are the things of idle daydreams), but it doesn’t mean we have to dress less than stage-worthy. Guinevere wore her tiger taffeta skirt with a black t-shirt and denim jacket. I wore my newsprint dress and a denim jacket. (Pete had RTW stuff involving Levis and a black linen button-front shirt) Romeo had the new jeans, flannel shirt, and black t-shirt I made him. He likes piano and he likes to sing, maybe someday he’ll play with a group of his own. He’s got the clothes for it.

Flannel 9

Stash busting stats:  31/50 projects (yes, that’s a giant leap in numbers compared to my last post. 4 new jeans, 2 new t-shirts, one flannel shirt = 7 new finished projects). 57 yards.

Comments

2 responses to “It’s OK–He’s With The Band”

  1. emsewcrazy Avatar

    You’ve been a busy lady! Looks like a lot of great stuff!

  2. Lynn Avatar

    It all does look like RTW, which, for most kids, is exactly the way it should look.

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