Jamarama

I started these way back in October. They were giving me fits at the time, so I set them aside for what turned out to be about two months. When I came back to them, things seemed to go alright. I don't know if that's because things actually were going more smoothly, or just because I wasn't so wound up about it, but either way: whew!

Pattern: These are the Sleeping Johns and the Envelope Tee from Growing Up Sew Liberated. I cut the pants in the 2T size and the shirt in the 18-24 month size in hopes of making something that will fit Adelaide through to spring.

Fabric: I ordered the apple-print thermal knit from Fabric.com last spring. I think it was on clearance. It's cute, but perhaps a bit thinner than I'd like. The ribbing is something I picked up from the remnants bin at JoAnn's. That is pretty much my exclusive method for selecting ribbed knits: Is there any ribbing in the remnants bin? Does the color not make my eyes hurt? Buy it! Buy it now! Which is kind of hilarious given how little I sew with knits and, thus, how little I actually need/use ribbing.

How it went down: Ugh. Knits. Knits and I just don't get along that well, but I keep trying. I made a few changes to the patterns, adding ribbed cuffs to the pants and the shirt both. The pants are soooo long. Adelaide is fairly wee, so I knew 2T would be a bit big and I shortened the legs a bit, but apparently not enough. On the other hand the ribbed cuffs mean they won't drag on the ground and trip her despite being too long. And she won't grow out of them anytime soon. I finished these up in December and, after Adelaide wore them a few times, it became clear that the neck opening was too big. One morning she ended up with the neck opening around her chest and her poor little arms out naked in the cold. I'm not sure what percentage of this neck-fit issue is attributable to the pattern vs. because I picked a size slightly too big vs. due to some stretching out while sewing. Regardless, a fix was needed to make the shirt wearable. So I hand-stitched the envelope closed at the ribbing-overlap point, making the opening more normal-neck-hole sized. And that seems to have worked.

Side note: Photos were a bit hard to get for these. The kid just wants to "help" with the camera/iPad. So Most of them came out totally blurry or something like this:

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