Christmas Outfits

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Back to Christmas sewing...

I wanted to make the boys matching outfits (surprise, surprise) for Christmas.  The first thing I decided I wanted to do was make cardigans.  I wanted the cardigans to have shawl collars rather than simple ribbing around the neck.

Something like this:

I used the Darling Cardigan pattern for the body then drafted my own pattern pieces for the collar.  It worked fairly well.    

The collars don't fold over perfectly.  I think if I do this again the collar have to be wider.

I used sweatshirt fleece for the fabric and I think it might have been a little too stiff for this pattern.  Mini Man can't move his arms very well.

And I actually made button-holes!!  They were about as awful as I remember.  My sewing machine isn't consistent with the stitch length when sewing button-holes so I end up having to pull the fabric during one part and push on another.  I recently discovered that there is a button-hole foot for my machine (amazing what you can discover when you read the manual).  I didn't know this existed.  Maybe if I use that next time it will help.

And one button-hole is longer than the others.  Fortunately Little Man always wears it buttoned so you can't see the awfulness.  

When I got to Mini Man's cardigan I decided to go with sew-in snaps.  I had enough of button-holes. 

Next I had to figure out what to wear under the cardigans.  I opted to make shirts from shirting fabric I had on hand.  

I used the Easy Linen Shirt pattern from Sewing for Boys.  The Easy Linen Shirt pattern is collar-less.  I'm not a huge fan of collar-less shirts so I used the collar pattern piece from the Henry Shirt (from the same book).   

Neither of these patterns are sized small enough for Mini Man so I had to draft pieces based on his clothes (that fit).  The drafted pieces worked surprisingly well.  Everything matched up, which doesn't always happen for me. 

The only problem now, is that the collars don't have buttons so they don't stay shut.  The boys have to wear an undershirt unless they want to show off their chests.  I was going to add a hook-and-eye closure, but thought that would be too fussy.  Thoughts?

The original pattern calls for a straight hem.  I used the curved hem from The Hipster Henley pattern to add some more interest.  I suppose you could call this a franken-shirts since I used three patterns to create one shirt.  

The cardigan is a little small on Mini Man (can't even button it).  The Darling Cardigan seems to run small for chunky babies.  

Both shirts fit (skinny) Little Man pretty well and he wore the outfit to his preschool Christmas program.  

He's the child plugging his ears. 

Kenda