maja.: April 2013

A fond memory I have from childhood is wrapping up in a hooded towel (made my my mom) after stepping out of the bath. At the time I appreciated the warmth and comfort, now I also appreciate the time and love that was put in to making the towels. So, now that I'm a mom, I hope that I can recreate memories like that for my children. I recently purchased beautiful, organic cotton fabric from SewFineFabric on Etsy. I love the colours and print. I wanted to make hooded towels for my children that appealed to them, but also to me. The animal print is for them and the colors and modern style are for me. For the inside of their towels, I used the same towels that we use in our bathrooms to tie it all together.

When Elegance & Elephants released their first pattern (the Ruffle Tunic) I made one for each of my girls and LOVED how they turned out. I was very excited to find out last week that I was chosen to be a pattern tester for E&E's new pattern: Bubble Pocket Shorts. This pattern comes in sizes 6 months - 8 years and has two versions of shorts. Since I have two girls, I made both versions of the shorts. For my four-year-old I made the sailor shorts in size 3/4T and for my 2-year-old I made the classic version in size 18m/2T.

Please forgive me for how many pictures I have! These shorts are just so cute I couldn't leave any pictures out. I was originally planning on taking pictures of my girls outside (our town has tons of amazing murals on buildings that would make very cool backdrops), but unfortunately mother nature decided to dump snow on us the night before I was ready to take pictures. For some reason along with the snowfall came tons of robins who ate almost all of my dried up crab apples off my trees. (Thank you robins!) Anyway, with all the snow, I had to move to plan b and take the pictures in the bedroom that my girls share.

I'll start with my review of the sailor style I made for Anja...
- First of all, they fit great! She is a slim, tall girl and the adjustable waist works perfect for her. Plus, I am very proud of myself for sewing an adjustable waistband for the first time. With Heidi's great instructions, it was actually quite simple.
- I love all the detail in these shorts: the 6 buttons on the front, the patterned fabric partial lining, and the bias tape that finishes it all off nicely on the inside. Of course all of these details also means this pattern requires a good chunk of time to complete (they took me almost 4 hours to sew), but the time is totally worth it because they are so stinking cute!

I've found that all of my children love putting treasures in their pockets. These shorts have the perfect pockets for treasures!

I was inspired by Anthropolgie's Louisa Dot Blouse. It's even paired with a grow-up version of E&E's sailor shorts! To create Anja's shirt, I added ruffles and lace to a plain white t-shirt and made a removable peter pan collar.

Ok, back to the shorts... did I say how proud I am of my adjustable waistband!?!

I did a very subtle ombre effect with the buttons and love how it turned out!

And now to my review of the classic style. (Heidi didn't ask me to review these, but I couldn't resist trying out this version.)
- The 18m/2T size fits Isla (my very average sized 2-year-old) perfectly and the elastic waistband means they'll grow with her all summer.
- I LOVE how quick this style is to make and am sure I will make a bunch more.
- Heidi's instructions are so easy to follow and she includes detailed pictures with each step.