Rainbow striped Dotty dress

It doesn't get much brighter than this does it! Its making things like this that genuinely just bring joy to my life and show me why I love to sew. This gorgeous little dress was on my make nine this year, and so in keeping with Children's week on The Great British Sewing Bee it was the perfect time to sew it up. Its also been an amazingly sunny week here in the UK for Feb so what better time to add even more sunshine to your day. Read on for more gorgeous pics of this dress, pattern details and a list of current rainbow jersey stockists... 

The very hungry caterpillar baby sleeping bag

Baby sleeping bags the best and would be my number 1 recommendation to any new parent. I don't know how new they are but our lives changed once we got Master Fox into his first sleeping bag. One of the biggest problems we had with him at night when he was tiny (especially as he's a winter baby) was that he would wake as soon as you tried to put him back in the cot as he missed the warm temperature of your body and didn't like the cold sheets. Sleeping bags eliminate this completely as they keep all their snuggly heat inside their snuggly little sacks.  

This sleeping bag is made using the Lua Sleep Sack pattern which I bought as a PDF download from Straight Grain patterns. Its a lovely pattern and I really wish I'd bought this when Master Fox was a lot smaller so I could have got more use out of it, but never mind, I am sure there will be more people in my life having babies so we know what they are getting as a gift. It was a really pleasant sew, and the instructions were really clear. I really like the piping detail (and the excuse to get more practice with my hated piping foot) but this detail can left out and there is the option to not have the contrasting top panel.

I think it's the fabric that makes this sleeping bag so amazing though. We all love The very hungry caterpillar, its been a part of all of ours, and our children's lives and its just so iconic. I also love how clear the print is its just so fresh and eye catching.

The fabric has officially licenced hungry caterpillars on and comes from Makower studio. There are 10! different patterns in this collection so even the spotty section at the top of the bag is from the matching set. I bought mine from Ebay as it was the easiest place to find the patterns I wanted listed together but it is also stocked in other online stores. The lining is just some plain green cotton which I bought from my local fabric shop in Beeston and I added self cover buttons as they just look so much nicer on hand made items like this.

As you can imagine the sleeping bag is quilted. I wanted this to be a lighter weight quilt for the summer months as Master Fox has grown out of the last one so I bought some 100% cotton batting from Cotton Patch. Its lovely and soft, its thin but also warm and being 100% cotton it shouldn't get too warm in the hotter weather. I haven't actually quilted the sleeping bag just stitched the edges so I will have to report back after its been through the wash but fingers crossed it will be fine, I did pre-wash it.

I hope you like it, I LOVE it! Mr Fox is to thank for the fabric choice, I was going to go for some dinosaurs so I am really glad he picked this one instead, The very hungry caterpillar is his favourite book to read to little Master Fox.

Christmas dungarees

Its time to one up the Christmas Jumper with these incredibly festive baby Santa dungarees! We all know the joy of having a kid is so that you can dress them up and Christmas is going to be no exception to that. Little girls get all the love though with pretty festive dresses and tutu's where as boys only really seem to get the jumper. I therefore couldn't resist the temptation of making him a pair of festive dungarees to help him celebrate the season. Especially as his social calendar was far busier than mine this year!

The pattern was again from Puperita and is the Little Birds Romper pattern. The fabric was Riley Blake Santa Claus Express cotton and the lining is just some red cotton both from Ebay. I love the Santa fabric so much, those little smiling Santa's are so cute. I also tried for ages to find some buttons the size the pattern recommended, finally settled for some which didn't really go, then found out they were too big for my button holes anyway and ended up searching the house and finally finding some self cover buttons (which reminds me I need to get some more). I think these work loads better though, those buttons are adorable with the little smiley Santa face on.

This was another exceptionally good pattern from Puperita. It was really simple to follow and being a cotton it was a dream to sew and the finish is top quality. The fit is really nice on them as well, they sit really nicely on his shoulders but also have a good amount of room in the waist to allow him to move about in. I did have the benefit of being able to measure these in the leg exactly so that the leg cuffs sit perfectly. I will definitely be making more of these as he grows up because they fit and wear so well. I can imagine all sorts of versions: cute cotton prints, corduroy, denim, it lends itself so well to so many woven fabrics.

I would be lying if I tried to tell you that I didn't try to pattern match these, but as you can see it went a horribly wrong (how am I so bad at this?) It's not the end of the world and I'm not going to cry about it but I don't understand how I always fail at this. I'm sure I will get there in the end.

The only disappointing thing about these dungarees is that Christmas is now over and he will soon grow out of them :( Having said that though because you don't need much fabric for baby clothes I certainly didn't spend more on these than I would have buying him a Christmas outfit from the shops. However Master Fox had something totally unique that made him look so damn cute.

Have you ever made your kids festive outfits, or yourselves for that matter? I would LOVE to see them.