At last, the final and very late entry for Rae and Dana's Celebrating the Summer Boy...
I wanted to get a better photo of Baby Stash modelling his sun hat but bad timing and now the weather have conspired against me so here is the wee sprog sitting in his bouncy chir and sucking his fingers. Very cute, but bad for his eczema.
Ooh! and he's even modelling his tunic - only just noticed that!
I made the hat about a month ago but me being me, I made in in Ikea Bomull so then it needed dyeing, and I only managed to get round to that last weekend. It's from the same Burda 9522 pattern that I made the navy short onesie from, and whilst the finished article came out very happily, I have to say (yet again) that this is not a great pattern to work with in terms of fabrication and directions.
I'm used to bucket hats being, or at least looking, reversible. In other words, no raw edges. If you follow the pattern as it is, you end up with a raw edge where the brim and the what's-it-called? sides? are sewn together, which to me looks pretty cheap and not very cheerful.
I ended up turning everything underneath, pinnning it to within an inch of it's life and top stitching it, which did the trick. I suppose you could also bias bind the raw edges, which might look quite smart.
There was also a lot of (far too much) ease between the sides and the top of the hat, of which there was no mention in the instructions, and made me a bit annoyed as well.
The thing is, I don't understand what has happened to Burda. I'm sure they weren't always this slap dash about their patterns or their instructions, and I think it's sad that they appear to dumbing down. It's not like the hat or the onesie are difficult to make - and I'm confident that even a beginner could manage to sew with jersey - so why end up with a poor quality garment?
Sorry. I have inexplicable stomach ache, the poor Grey Cat ended up at the vet for the second time in three weeks with a serious leg wound (what does she do when she's out?), next door's house alarm has been ringing since quarter past 11 this morning, and I discovered my favourite summer jumper developed two holes when it was last in the wash, so perhaps this is not a good blogging day!
Grumble, grumble.
By the way, the fantastically cute ribbon is from Blooming Felt, who have quite a few lovely ribbons for sale. Their minimum order is £5 (which is really no hardship at all given what they sell) so I also got some dinosaur ribbon and some sky rockets ribbon and these will make an appearance at some stage. The great thing about all these ribbons - apart from the fact that they SO CUTE - is that the designs are woven into the ribbon, not printed on like a lot of the stuff you can get. So no looking crappy after they're been in the wash ten times.
More tunic developments over the weekend...
