A while back I pinned this super cute romper from Erin at Lemon Tree Creations, with the promise that if Hercules was a boy, I would be making it for his Christmas outfit.

Turns out that Herc was Ronan, and so it was time to get stuck into my Christmassy fabrics.

(and FYI, if Herc had been a girl, I would have been making this sunsuit from Made By Rae in Michael Miller’s Yule Critters in Aqua – gorgeous!)

Erin’s tutorial was very simple, and the result was insanely cute…

Squee! I love the addition of the buttons.

And on a very unco-operative baby…

It’s a 0000 size and is still too big for him, but I refuse to spend any money on 00000, so we’re embracing the baggy look right now!

But the best part of all?

Making the boys wear matching outfits for Christmas day. I figure with my eldest about to turn five I only have another year of embarrassing them this way solely for my Christmas photos to look nice and co-ordinated.

I just freehanded the ties, but Erin has a tutorial for them here if you’re interested.

The fabric used were all from Michael Miller’s Holiday Collection, the colours are far more traditional than I normally go for, but the prints worked so well for ties that I couldn’t resist.

One thing checked off my Christmas Crafting list, and about twenty more to go… in the next day. I should have probably planned this whole giving birth thing a little bit better!

Amanda is the lovely lady behind Kitshycoo, she’s based in Edinburgh, so she’s a pom like myself, and on her store she has a range of patterns for kids’ clothing. The pattern for the reversible hoodie was 11.50 US, so just under 11 Aussie dollars, which is a bit more than I like to pay for print at home patterns, but after reading so many positive reviews and seeing the different creations on the kitshycoo flickr group, I gave in and figured it was time to stop procrastinating and actually give it a shot.

If you follow my personal account on twitter you might have spotted my inital tweet after I’d read through the tutorial that accompanied the pattern, I think this was probably the point where I decided it was all too hard and I’d just wait until my Mum (clothes sewing extrordinaire) to come and help me, but by then I’d gone out and bought my fabric, and zips etc, and I’m not a patient person, so I just dove in.

I ended up using some of Michael Miller’s 2D Zoo, combined with baby blue fleece from Lincraft. Cutting out I was super impressed at the lack of fabric wastage, I followed Amanda’s cutting layout and it barely left any scraps over, which is always awesome. I hate buying something specifically for a certain project and having a tonne of scraps left over from it.

I found that my desperate tweet was completely unfounded. Once I got started everything seemed to click, the tutorial suddenly made sense when I had the actual pieces in front of me, and although I WAS a little stumped when it came to sewing the sleeves, I did it as explained, and was completely shocked when it came time to turn the hoodie the right side out and everything magically worked, I should have had a little more faith in people who (unlike me!) actually know what they’re doing when it comes to garment sewing.

One thing I will say is Amanda is very active on twitter, and as soon as I mentioned on there that I was a little intimidated, she offered to help as much as she could, so if you do have any issues, the follow up service is awesome, so you’re not just left to sit down and work it all out on your own, that’s one of the real bonuses of buying from an independent pattern seller. Amanda even followed up once I’d finished my first hoodie, so really, the aftercare you’re getting here is just excellent.

I made up the size 3 for my almost 3 year old, and the fit is perfect across the shoulers and down his body, but the sleeves are a little long, but that could be due to his stumpy arms. It’s just something I’ll watch out for when making it again in the future. I couldn’t find ribbing in the right shade of blue, so ended up using the fleece for the ribbing sections, which worked great on the waistband, but not so well on the cuffs, but that was totally my fault and not an issue with the pattern whatsoever. It took me about a two hours to complete, and then an additional hour to unpick and reattach the zip so it faced the right way out – not my finest moment.

I had an issue with sourcing what Amanda reffered to as a Sports zip, neither Lincraft or Spotlight had anything like it and the ladies at Spotlight looked at me like I was crazy when I described what I was after, so I’m not sure if they’re just not popular over here, or they go by a different name. I’ll pop into my local dress making store sometime over the next week or so and ask if they’re familiar with them and keep you updated. So my finished hoodies aren’t actually reversible, which is perfectly okay because that look awesome anyway.

For my second hoodie I had ordered some of Anne Kelle’s Zoology Too line, and as Connor’s version was a little too warm as we’re making our way into Summer, I ended up ditching the sweatshirt fleece I’d bought and instead used flannelette from Spotlight (it was actually “Quilters Flannelette” found on bolts instead of their usual “Funky Flannel” from a roll, and the hand of the fabric after washing and tumble drying is so nice! I picked it up on sale at $6/m, so I’m not sure what its usual price is, but $6 is the standard price for the printed “Funky Flannel” which tends to feel kind of crunchy after its first wash.) to make more of a midseason hoodie. I also had black ribbing this time around which made a world of difference on how good the cuffs looked once they were finished! I measured the size four pattern against my super skinny/tall four year old and found that it was a perfect fit on the shoulders, it just needed slightly more length on the arms and body – which even I, clothes sewing newbie, can manage! I didn’t make any mistakes this time around, and total time from cutting to finish was just over an hour and a half – and that was with Declan standing next to me asking repeatedly “is it done yet?”

This is really a fabulous pattern and tutorial, and although it looks complex on first read through, I promise everything falls into place. The instructions are clear, there are plenty of photos and the pattern is very well drafted. The only downside I really found was the lack of zips to actually make it fully reversible, but really, it’s such a nice pattern I’m not too worried about that. Although I initially baulked at the price, I can see me using this patterns several times over, so I will definitely get my money’s worth. And It’s awesome to find some cool patterns for boys clothes, particularly ones that can use all the fun quilting cottons that you can get now. The boys wore them out for the first time today and had we had several comments on how cool and different they were and Declan in particular is absolutely in awe of his “Dinosaur Jumper”, if the kid had this reaction to everything I make, I might make him clothes more often!

Tutorial: Flour Paste Batik
Level: Easy
Time taken: Probably only an hour worth of actual work, but there’s a lot of waiting time as well, this isn’t an instant gratification project! Give yourself a full weekend to allow for drying times.
License: N/A
Materials Used: Fabric dyes, spray bottles, frame, flour, water, cotton fabric (I used cheap homespun from Lincraft at $4pm).

Changes Made

• I didn’t have any cornflour to hand and so used plain old self raising, I didn’t notice any problems arise from this.
• For the dye I used “Designline Soft Fabric Paint” that I bought from my local Riot for $10 a bottle, one bottle of red and one of yellow meant that I could also get an orange layer in there. I watered it down about half and half and then put it in a spray bottle from a dollar store. Using paint as opposed to dye made it a little “crunchier” than I would have liked, but after a couple of washes it seems to have softened up.

Tips

• I thought it would be a fabulous idea to pin my fabric to the frame of an old pinboard. What I didn’t think about was the cardboard on the back. The fabric obviously became wet with the dye and firmly attached itself to the cardboard and ripped it off when I took it off. It’s come out with a couple of washes so it’s not the end of the world, just not the smartest idea on my part! What would be awesome for this is this Stretcher Frame from Ikea, it’s 50×50 so would give you a decent size of fabric, and at only $5 it’s not going to blow your budget.
• I used a squeezy ketchup bottle, and my lines aren’t as fine as I would like, right after I finished my husband asked me why I didn’t just use a ziplock bag, the same way I ice cookies – snip off a corner and pack it in and squeeze. Duh. Using this method would give you far greater control of the line size – to make it wider just snip the corner higher up, and once you’re done you can just chuck the bag away so there’s no messy clean up. It doesn’t look terrible with the squeezy bottle, I would have just liked a finer line on the finished product.

I LOVE this project, waxless batik FTW! Particularly for children (assuming you have fairly patient kids who don’t mind a bit of waiting in between stages!), it’s an excellent way to introduce children to the art and concept behind batik without having the risk of hot elements and melted wax around. Plus, it’s cheap! My favourite crafts are ones that I can do with what I have laying around the house. I could see this as a great way to make some personalised artwork for your home, or design your own fabric for cushion covers. Why pay $20pm for batik quilting fabrics when you can make your own?

Pattern: Mr Funky’s Pretty Little Kitty from Super Crochet Wonderful, the pattern is also available at Narumi Ogawa’s Etsy shop, although I feel that I should say that I find it very odd that she’s selling the “Spunky Funky Monkey” and “Pretty Little Kitty” as separate patterns at $5 each, they are exactly the same pattern other than the addition of a circle for the monkey’s face and the slight difference in the ears. In her book they are listed as one pattern with slight modifications.
Level: Intermediate
Time taken: I crochet slowly and usually whilst watching telly, so this is no gauge, but it took me about three hours, maybe slightly more.
License: In the book permission is given to sell the finished product at “fairs, bazaars and craft shows”, however on the individual pattern for sale on Narumi’s Etsy store it states “Please do not use this pattern for commercial or retail purpose”, so I’m not 100% sure what the go is there.
Yarn Used: A worsted weight (12 ply) yarn is recommended, but I’m stash busting so my kitty is made from an acrylic baby yarn I picked up over two years ago that has been dying a slow death at the bottom of my stash basket.

Alterations

• The change of yarn is probably the most obvious, the baby/sport weight yarn combined with a 3mm hook leaves the kitty sitting about 6 inches high at the very most. This design translates very nicely to the thinner yarn, and I’ll even say that it’s kind of cute being so small.
• No safety eyes! Ack, this is annoying me so much, I had a brain fart and attached the head to the body before I attached the eyes, meaning I had to sew on seed beads. I think the eyes (and the curled whiskers) totally make the pattern and I’m a bit bummed about this.
• No whiskers, I haven’t seen “cotton covered wire” anywhere, but I may have just missed it, I plan to go to the local craft store later in the week and will see if I can find any to finish the kitty off.

Tips

• Put your safety eyes in before sewing the head to the body!
• I think the addition of a pipe cleaner in the tail so you can mirror the curls in the whiskers would be awesome, unfortunately, I only thought of this after attaching the tail.
• I love the addition of the clothes crocheted into the body of the kitty in the middle of this picture, this is one of the reasons I love Ravelry, it’s great seeing the same pattern coming out in so many different ways. The way the pattern is done also means that it would be fairly simply to do, the only difference would be a yarn change midway through the body.

Overall it’s a nice pattern, I didn’t find any errors in the directions or the counts, there are a few things that did bother me but I’ll save them for the complete book review in a couple of weeks – I want to make a few more items from the book before I make up my mind. The finished object is cute and it’s a great pattern to move from beginner to more advanced Amigurumi. The only real negative I think is the discrepancies in the licensing, but if you’re only interested in making this for yourself then that isn’t even an issue.

All of Arounna’s tutorials can be found here. I’m sure you’ll see a couple more of these turn up on CraftBlog in the future, there are some awesome ideas!

Tutorial: #12 Water Colour Flowers
Level: Easy – great for kids!
Time taken: Half an hour
License: N/A
Materials Used: Canvas board, watercolours and a permanent marker.

Changes Made

• Arounna used watercolour paper, I couldn’t find mine anywhere so ended up using canvas board instead, this is more suited for acrylic work, so I think it affected the spread of the paint, I think the blobs would be more “blobby” if I’d have used watercolour paper as it would have saturated properly, but overall using canvas didn’t make a huge difference.
• I don’t have any india ink, in my first piece I used a fine sharpie to create the contrasting lines, it led to more of a sketchy effect which I wasn’t too keen on. For the second one I used a thick black permanent marker and it really made the colours pop out of the canvas, originally I think I was worried about making the lines too heavy and overwhelming but I think the thicker lines work really well.

Tips

• Let loose! The first piece I did I was fairly uptight that my paint was doing exactly what I wanted and that everything was going to look perfect, I think that’s a product of being a grown up though. Let your inner child come through and have fun instead of worrying that everything is precise.
• As I said above, don’t be worried about the heavy lines, the contrast is what makes this piece look so great.

I love the effect that you end up with for such a small amount of work, I could see a collection of these used to brighten up a hallway or even if done on a smaller scale to make very cute handmade greeting cards, I’m sure kids would be more interested in writing thank you cards to long lost relatives if they get to blob paint everywhere first!

You can see other people’s versions of this tut here.

If you would like your tutorial reviewed by someone on the CraftBlog team, please contact us with a link and brief description and we’ll find the person best suited to take it on!

The Purl Frog Pattern is from The Purl Bee, the blog created to accompany an NYC based patchwork and craft store. It’s a blog full of tutorials, class information (great if you’re local!), and a huge amount of inspiration for sewing, crochet and knitting projects.

Pattern: The Purl Frog
Level: Easy
Time taken: Half an hour
License: For personal use only
Fabric Used: Frog print from Timeless Treasures

The free pattern is in PDF format, with both printable PDF instructions and written instructions on the website. It’s such a simple project the instructions aren’t really needed, but they are still very clear and understandable for those that do need them.

Alterations

• I don’t have a printer at home so all PDF patterns I trace my screen, meaning that they usually come out a little smaller, even if I’m viewing at 100%, so this is slightly smaller than then 7.5 inches given.
• The thought of a frog without webbed feet just didn’t sit right with me, so I added a few webs on each feet as I was sewing him together – I wouldn’t recommend this! It made it a real beast to turn inside out, and although the front feet do look cute, the back feet just look awkward.
• My 18 month old son will probably end up with this, so beads for eyes weren’t an option, and I seem to have misplaced my jar of safety eyes, felt came to the rescue and they still look great. I would love to remake this pattern with some really big green bulgy safety eyes.
• I filled mine with rice as opposed to mung beans or lentils, so far no dramas, but I’ll update the post if I have issues with this later.

Tips

• Be obsessive about that 1/4 inch seam, don’t make it any less, and use pinking shears on the seam once you’re finished, this is one project you really don’t want to split whilst it’s being played with, lentils covering the floor is not a good thing

It’s definitely a begininers project, not that that’s a bad thing, I do these often just because I know that I can complete them in one of my son’s naps and fill the urge to sew without getting too bogged down in something. It’s a cute little toy for any child, although I would love to remake it using a combination of sand and roving so I could have a little pincushion, once I got over the aspect of sticking pins into a frog I think it would be sweet addition to my sewing room.

Have you made The Purl Frog? Let us know your thoughts via the comments.