Downsizing: Klimperklein jacket modified

Posted on 27/10/2015 by atelieroursonne

We are a bit short of baby clothes because I lent them to someone a few years ago and never got them back. So I decided to use up the lovely Viking jersey initially purchased for my nephew’s birthday jacket to make a baby version of the same Klimperklein pattern.

Klimperklein is the brand of an amazing woman with 5 lovely children who still manages to create lovely patterns for baby and children clothes. Her blog is in German and I think the e-books are also only available in German but they are brilliantly written and with so many pictures that even those professional looking jackets were fairly easy to make. So I guess, what I am saying is “Learn German” 🙂

So far, I have made these for my children…

and this one for my nephew…

I love the colour combination of this one, I made the cuffs and the hem (I really have no clue how you call the red piece of the main body: hem, waistsomething? Help, anybody, please) slightly wider as I had one of the pattern pieces accidentally folded on the wrong line and the main body would have gotten too short. Oops.

But back to the modified baby version. As you can see the original klimperklein jacket has a zip and in my case a hood but there is a collar version too (and many more options to choose from).

But I thought for a baby, none of these things are very suitable, all I wanted was a simple jacket with snaps, normal neckline and simple hem and cuffs. Something like this:

At first glance it is what I wanted but actually I have mixed feelings about it so lets have a closer look.

The most important modification from zip to buttons or snaps is obviously that the front pieces have to overlap rather than just meet in the centre. So I added 2cm to the original front pattern and the initial zip facing to make sure that I would have a wide enough button border.

First jersey snaps of my life, 10mm from Prym, I think I want to find slightly smaller ones for those children clothes. Also, I need to get stronger, they are slightly on the loose side I think.

Instead of using a ribbing for waist and arms, I just added 2cm seam allowance, neatened the edges with the serger, whilst at the same time closed the seam between the button facing and the hem

Usually I am using the twin needle to give the hem a professional finish…

but as I have recently noticed that these seams seem to fall apart easily (not sure what I am doing wrong) I wanted to do something different and went for another stitch.

So, I ironed the hem to the back, estimating 2cm instead of using a ruler. But then suddenly I took it very seriously and actually tacked on the serged edge to give me a line to follow when sewing on the right side, making sure that I am really sewing on the serged edge… Which was a good plan but I never actually compared the ends of my tacked line and also got a bit caught up when finally topstitching it with my fancy stitch. So….. good idea but really bad execution led to this:

Whilst I am really unhappy with the result (especially as this was a very obvious danger and something I knew about), I think that it has been a necessary mistake to be made once. And hopefully I will forever remember and for once really learn from it 🙂

The other section that needed alteration was the neckline. My initial idea was to use the pattern for the hooded jacket and cut the neckline without seam allowance and to finish with some bias binding. But when I stitched the facing to the front openings, I thought it would be clever to just continue the seam where the facing goes into the neckline to make the whole bias binding attaching more straight forward. Which was a big mistake. Obviously, if you are stitching facing to jacket right side to right side and then turn it, you will loose the width of your seam. So there will be a gap or maybe rather jump between the part of the neckline with facing and the part without facing.

It wasn’t a big deal, it just meant that my whole neckline became slightly wider (which does matter in the case of a tiny newborn jacket), but at the same time I realised that actually I would prefer a normal neckline with facing all around. So I copied the neckline from the pattern to make a back neckline and elongated it to hide the ends on the already existing neckline.

As the initial facing gets really narrow the result looks a bit silly. But again, the learning curve here is really steep. If I ever make a baby version of this jacket, I will make a proper facing, widening the neckline part of the button band facing and make it longer, to make sure it would go around the whole neck. This might result in a waist of fabric but I guess, once the pattern is perfect you could split it into three sections and safe some material.

Now that I have shared all my mistakes with you – maybe one last thing I would like to add: I made the smallest size 56 which corresponds to something like 1 month or 1-3, I forgot, but to me it looks really really huge. I don’t think it will fit for the next couple of months but I will find out I guess…. considering that I still need to get the future owner out, I am actually hoping it will only fit in a couple of months 🙂

Back to the start of my sentence: Now that I have shared all my mistakes with you, I would like to point out that I am still pleased with the result. I kind of want to make another one just to see that correcting the mistakes will lead to a perfect baby jacket but then we won’t need two of these. Maybe someone else could step in and use my mistakes to make their own perfect baby jacket, please?

Scrap Sunday: The doll carrier

Posted on 25/10/2015 by atelieroursonne

I am currently writing this post whilst waiting for a couple of babies joining the family. I am scheduling it (the post, not one of the babies) for Sunday, so when you are reading it, we might not be waiting anymore 🙂

Anyway, I made a doll carrier for the soon-to-be big sister of my future nephew and I am quite pleased with it. And I am not the only one, in fact I have already gotten complaints why ours is not so pretty. For the record, 4 years ago, I was running through all the fabric shops in Shepherds Bush to find the requested “airplane” fabric for the doll carrier of a certain young lady. Which then really wasn’t cheap. But I guess, taste can change, particularly if you are not 2 anymore but 6. And I have to agree, we chose really nice fabrics (you might recognise them from other projects) for this one.

I think this carrier is suitable for slightly younger children, so the straps look a bit out of proportion on the following picture because of the model being a bit taller. Or should the strap be fixed slightly deeper? Maybe.

The carrier can be worn in front or at the back.

I made the straps a bit longer, same for the waist strap as it was already a bit tight on my children, depending on what they are wearing and they actually tend to be on the slimmer side.

I found the ebook initially on Etsy (at the time not even knowing what Etsy was) and whilst I am happy that I found it there, I would do a few things differently next time. Which I would like to point out (to myself) as I am sure that 4 years ago I had already thought the same but didn’t remember it this time round.

When you print out the pattern, the line is actually a couple of mm thick so it is hard to know where to cut to make sure that the straps will match their positions on the main body. Also, I couldn’t read what seam allowance is included, I do think it is meant to be 1/4 in.

The pocket fabric is folded, which is a bit too stiff if you are using a thicker cotton as I did in this case but perfectly fine when using a thinner material.

I struggled quite a bit with the waist. First of all the little curve between waistband and main body but also where the waist thingy joins the strap. In the pattern the waist thingy doesn’t end in a straight line but in a slightly sloped line so I have now an edge in between the main waist thingy and the strap which doesn’t make much sense. So next time, I will have to make sure that I even this out when placing the strap:

The waist strap is closed with a proper side release buckle, but the shoulder ones only by sliding the strap through a bar slide buckle which I find a bit too loose. In the case of the pictured carrier it is actually ok as the material is a bit thicker and I made the straps on purpose a tiny bit wider but the first one was made of a rather thin cotton and the straps just didn’t stay in place. So maybe a proper buckle like for the waist might be better. But then it means that the carrying child needs a lot more help to get it on an off. So the loose version might be the better option anyway.

The e-book itself is done very thoroughly, lots of pictures and explanations, I was actually a bit overwhelmed and maybe for me personally, a little less would have been better. I guess this is due to me struggling a bit with many unfamiliar terms on one hand but maybe spreading the whole thing out on more pages would have been good… Which makes me realise that I tend to squeeze things when writing patterns to save paper. So this is another lesson learnt, I hope.

I didn’t mean to criticize the e-book as it helped me make already three wonderful doll carriers but for me personally there are a few things that I would do differently and hopefully these comments will help me or anybody else when using the pattern next time.

Scrap Sunday: It’s raining hats

Posted on 18/10/2015 by atelieroursonne

First of all, a couple of months ago, against all my objections I opened a Facebook account to be able to connect with others to save our nursery. And as too many people have been annoying me to open a page for Facebook Atelier Oursonne, I have finally done that and created a few albums with pictures of previous projects. So like it or not but if you are on facebook, please share it with your friends 🙂

But back to the actual purpose of this post: Scrap Sunday

When I bought my e-book for the children jacket from klimperklein, I just couldn’t resist a few of the other e-books. So I also bought two for hats:

One for baby hats which you can tie under the chin and one for older ones with lots of variations.

Obviously these hats are great scrap projects and I have already made one for each of my children.

Although I have to admit that for the two big ones I had to cut into newly bought huge pieces of fabric, so not quite a scrap piece. I bought them to make onesies pyjamas to be ready for chilly nights but haven’t found the right pattern just yet.

I was really trying to convince my children to use more contrasting fabrics inside but they both went for the most boring possible option. Such a disappointment. I will never ever make anything for them. Ever. At least I am not going to ask them their opinion again. Ever.

I have also realised that actually a newborn will not like the hat to be tied under his chin, so I quickly made a new one without straps. Unfortunately there was no more blue jersey left (as I had been forced to use it for the pirate one!) so I ended up with another stripy fabric and in theory it can be worn both sides but I think the blue and red one might be too strong colours for the very newborn. I guess we will find out in a couple of days. 🙂 In any case, those stripy fabrics are the softest ones you could possibly imagine and I want to make myself a huge whole body suit out of it and spend all day in it 🙂 And I am so close to buy all of the existing colour combinations.

And as I really like those baby hats, I made quickly one for my baby niece.

The fabric had once been chosen by another niece for a shirt. But I think she wouldn’t find it “cool” so it is better used for a baby hat. It is lovely to see how these things travel through the family.

I have a feeling that I need to cover a few more ears 🙂

Scrap Sunday: dressing up made easy… if not a little too easy

Posted on 27/09/2015 by atelieroursonne

When I posted my to do list a couple of weeks ago, I might have mentioned two costumes for a party where my children were asked to turn up as Tiger Lily and pirate.

I wasn’t too keen to be honest. I guess it is just my natural dislike of doing something that wasn’t my own choice but someone else telling me what to do (Believe it or not, a part of me (qualified teacher) doesn’t want my children to do their homework properly 🙂 )

Anyway, I didn’t want to spend too much time on the costumes plus I actually like the simple ones that leave enough room for imagination much more than those sets that make every little girl look like a certain princess and every little boy as a certain super hero. Considering that I have made quite a few costumes in the last few years, I guess I should at some point put them all together in one post put for now let me just remind you of the Room on the Broom witch and her dragon. I think the latter is one of my favourites.

But back to the Peter Pan party.

For the pirate, I decided that an eye patch (shop bought and plastic, was better than the one I had made a few posts ago), a triangular pirate head scarf made of two scrap pieces of a shark themed cotton and a belt together with a stripy T-Shirt and some shortish leggings would be enough.

I was once again convinced that the red and white stripes used for the knight costume would make an ideal pirate belt and I decided to do a double sided belt as I did suddenly feel a bit guilty about my negative approach, I guess any scarf wrapped around the belly would have been just fine.

To save on the precious stripes I chose the blue dots for the other side – also to give the pirate a choice, depending on the mood and the rest of the outfit.

I then put in some kam snaps as, once again, they seemed perfect for this occasion.

I decided on two rows of snaps to make sure that the belt can be worn for longer, or by different children. I guess, that was a bit unrealistic, but if there is already a choice of designs then surely there should also be a choice of sizes to make this the ultimate pirate belt.

Unfortunately I can’t really show you of the belt worn by a pirate, first of all he refused to wear a suitable T-shirt and put it over a jumper which did not really make him look like a pirate at all and secondly I do not have any pictures of the worn outfit which would pass my “no faces online” policy.

For the Tiger Lily, I took a left over light yellow cotton and cut two rectangles (length: shoulder to knee-ish, width: shoulders plus a few cm)

On one of the shorter sides, I created the shoulders, leaving the middle of the edge open for the neck, then I cut out a neckline. With the serger I just went around all the edges and made a rolled hem and then I closed the middle of the longer edges, creating armholes but leaving it open at the bottom to make sure that the “dress” has enough room to move around and climb on pirate ships.

As I had known that the Tiger Lily was particularly unhappy about her forced costume, I wanted to make up for it with fancy trims and so I had, already on my last shopping trip, bought some leather fringe and put it on the hem and also across the chest, rather than just cutting a fringe into the hem which would have been my initial idea.

And for the headdress I had chosen a pretty blue trimming, closed it with a piece of elastic to make sure it would fit and just sew on a red feather.

I am afraid that is the best picture I can offer you but at least you can see that it is really a perfect costume to play and climb.

So just like the simplicity of the costumes should inspire the children’s imagination, I am hoping that the lack of quality of the pictures will inspire the imagination of my dear readers 🙂

Atelier Oursonne

handmade for you

Category Archives: children

Downsizing: Klimperklein jacket modified

Scrap Sunday: The doll carrier

Scrap Sunday: It’s raining hats

Scrap Sunday: dressing up made easy… if not a little too easy