Boys Underwear

I recently went on a bit of an underwear making spree, after  successfully trying out the That Darn Kat undies pattern. They are fantastically cute children's underwear that use only small amounts of knit fabric, and are elastic-less. The boys style also features a functioning y-front.

TDK Undies

These sewed up quite quickly, and the only slightly tricky bit was sewing the leg bands on the smaller sized ones, as the freearm on my machine made it a bit of a tight fit.

The only change I made to the pattern was to attach the leg bands like a binding that wrapped around the leg holes rather than the flip and top-stitch method used on the waistband. To me this made them look more like undies and less like training pants.

My son somewhat logically couldn't fathom the purpose of a y-front for his 4 year old self, so a couple of his pairs have a non functioning  front piece.

After a friend saw the first pair I made, she asked if I could make some for her son too. He had very definite colour and pattern preferences, so the finished collection had a bit of a multi-pack look to it.

I really recommend this pattern, and will definitely be making more of them with my younger son about to start toilet training.

Christmas Ornament Swap 2012

A few months ago, I signed up to the New Zealand Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap. The basic premise is you are assigned a swap partner, for whom you make one Christmas ornament and a card.

This sounded like a fun activity to take part in, in the lead up to Christmas so I signed up.

The ornament I made was a ribbon pine cone. These are fairly simple and quick to make - using sequin pins, you attach rows of folded ribbon to a polystyrene egg.

They can look quite effective if you group several together in a bowl or dish for a table centerpiece, particularly if you use coordinating ribbon colours. (Not like the ones above!)

I was assigned Gillian of Mudbird Ceramics as my swap partner, so I packaged up my pinecone and card and posted it off to her.

The very next day, I received a package from Gillian, and was delighted to discover a lovely wee ceramic dove and card featuring one of her other designs. Thanks, Gillian!

This has been a great experience to take part in, and I'm sure I'll be playing along again next Christmas.