Thursday, February 12, 2009

Overalls

Here's what I made for Sofia this week.

Sorry, this is the best photo I could come up with. Black, fine-wale corduroy—hard to photograph. The legs have a cuff at the bottom. The picture on the pattern cover showed a poofier leg gathered onto the cuff. The reality was a leg barely bigger than the cuff, but, oh well, they look pretty cute anyway. I always liked overalls on little kids. They can wear them for a long time. Just move the buttons to make the thing longer and they don't fall down. The cuffs keep the legs from dragging if they are a little long. The other day Sofia had on a pair of embroidered denim jeans that were, admittedly adorable, but they kept drooping down around her hips. I later learned there is a piece of elastic inside the back of the waistband that you can adjust to make them fit tighter or looser around the waist and it had come entirely undone. Grandmas don't know about such new-fangled things. I like overalls.

Here's a closeup of the fabric—little embroidered tulips in bright colors on the black. Some people do not approve of dressing children in black. I think black looks good on everyone, especially with the addition of hot pink buttons. Here they are reflecting the light, but they are really pretty hot.

I made a lot of clothes for my children and I think saved a lot of money, while keeping them well-dressed. Something has happened since then. Children's clothing has gotten cheaper and fabric has gotten more expensive. I could probably have bought something comparable for less than the fabric cost for this, but it would not have had my special smoochy mojo sewn into it.

6 comments:

  1. Smoochy mojo? You should copyright that name!

    Believe it or not, that brilliant adjustable elastic waistband wasn't even around when my kids were toddlers! And they're 6 and 9!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Having a very skinny 10 year old, I now live and die by the adjustable waistband. And lets hear it for special smoochy mojo! We could all use more of that! I agree that the hot pink buttons balance out any amount of black. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree - I got a pattern and two pieces of fabric for pants for our grandson and it came to almost 25.00 - and that was with the pattern 40% off - and the fabrics both on special. Could have gotten him a lot of clothes from the consignment shop for that price - but Grammy wants to sew things. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. The pink eyes -- buttons -- are so funny! -- When I was a kid, I had a special relationship to black. I liked to paint with white, yellow and light green on black cardboard. And I loved a dress which was patterned with green, red, grey and black stripes. Black meant dark night: Staying up at special occasions. And as this overall will probably worn with sweaters or shirts in bright colours, I think this is a very special piece. In Tibetan tradition, black is the colour of protection.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Indeed, smoochy mojo has such oomph to it! I and my mother made and designed just about all my daughters clothes when she was a toddler. Saved mucho moola then and she was beautifully dressed. When she out grew the outfits we sold them to a resale shop that had a waiting list for her cast offs!! and, most of the clothes were of an overall type.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Agree -- coveralls are the best!!

    ReplyDelete