My very first self-made pattern!

So my little girl got this whole huge bag of hand-me-downs from some friends when we were in Mexico last spring. And there was this one razorback tunic in there that I just loved to bits and it was the cutest thing ever. But the thing is, toddlers grow. And they tend to grow out of stuff, no matter how cute it is. So!I thought, I really need to make a copy of this in a bigger size. But how does one do that? Well... I did not want to rip the whole thing apart. She can still wear it a few more months. So I laid it down on my table and started folding and tracing to the best of my abilities... and pretty soon I had a pattern! I added a centimeter here and there to make it a little bigger, and then I added the seam allowance before I traced it again on pattern paper and started cutting.









I will not go into the details of all the errors I made in the actual construction of this little tunic. When I think about it now, they are such obvious no-nos that they make me blush just thinking about it... But after some pretty hefty seam ripping and redoing, the result was pretty sweet. The yoke is fully lined, and the lining is slip stitched to the seam in the back, so it looks totally perfect on the inside too. The side seams are French. Oh, yeah, I went all out here.

But I'm far from completely happy. 


My first mistake was the fabric I chose for the yoke. It'ss way too sturdy and has no ... NO... stretch. So even though the tunic is sleeveless and has a 12 centimeter button opening in the front, its hard to get it on and off. Next time, I'll try something more stretchy, like maybe a stretch denim?

Mistake 2: The button holes. Oh. Dear.  I will not show an up close picture of them. I SHOULD have done them in yellow thread, but in my still-newbie innocence thought they would look nice in white, since all the other contrasting was done in white. The yellow would have covered my poor work more... I don't know why they turned out so badly. I've never had that happen before. Maybe it's the toughness (and many layers right here) of the yellow yoke fabric. In the yellow fabric's defense, it was born as a sheet (thrifted), so who can blame it for not being apt for garmenthood...?

The shorts are made from MADE's Kid pant pattern. They are the flat front variety, which I have come to really like. And they sew up in like 20 minutes flat, even with French seams.