Robots for the little ones (Ottobre 06/2012 2. Nukkumatti and 16. Raide) < with my hands

My dear friend had a little baby boy and I wanted to congratulate the newcomer and his big brother with matching outfits. Ottobre design 06/2012 had two patterns that suited the purpose beautifully. Ottobre 06/2012 2. Nukkumatti is a baby pyjamas pattern (“Nukkumatti” means “Sandman” in Finnish) but when my children were babies I used to dress them in overalls like these even during daytime due to their easiness. Ottobre 06/2012 16. Raide is a pattern for a basic long-sleeved t-shirt for a little boy or a girl.

I found this lovely robot jersey from Paapii design. I bought just one metre of it which was enough for the both patterns. However, I had to use a lot of time and effort to pattern match. For the edgings I decided to use ordinary white cotton elastane jersey,

Nukkumatti has sizes from 56 to 92 cm, which is about from the size of a newborn to a 2- or 3-year old toddler. An invisible zipper is sewn on to the center-front seam and it continues a bit to the left inner leg seam. I did my best to make the pattern match on the both sides of the zipper so that the zipper almost disappears.

Sewing the overall was pretty easy and I did not need to use the instructions. Because of that, I did not use flat coverstitch to attach the cuffs but I just serged them on.

I am happy with the outcome. This is a very good pattern for somebody wanting to make a present for a baby. It is quick and easy and you can make it your own by choosing a nice fabric and/or adding appliqués and other details.

Raide t-shirt is a very good basic pattern to own. It has sizes from 92 cm to 128 cm, so from a toddler to about 8- or 9-year-old (The biggest size would fit to my 10-year-old easily, but he is short for his age.). With this pattern you can take all the fun out of patterned jerseys!

This pattern is super easy and quick to sew, so it didn’t take much time at all. I tried using my new cover stitch machine and it’s bias attachment to sew the binding to the neckline. However, every single time I tried it, I ended up ripping everything off due to a massive amount of skipped stitches. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. The machine works fine when I stitch two layers of jersey and it even goes over seams without any problems. Finally I stitched the collar band on with my sewing machine and finished it with the cover stitch machine.

I had some jersey left-over so I wanted to make something that a baby would actually appreciate. I went through my ribbon box and found all sorts of different ribbons and sewed them to the edges of this little rag. The other side of the rag has the robot pattern and the other is made of white jersey with some hopefully interesting ribbons and a huge button to fiddle with. The button is big enough that a baby cannot fit it in his mouth so it is safe! I decided to call this toy “interes-thingy”.

The robot side:

The button side:

S loves babies and she wanted to make something for the baby, too. She has a book by Jane Bull called Animals Made By Me (or Itse tehdyt pehmoeläimet in Finnish). It is a great book with lots of cute little projects that are suitable for beginner sewers and knitters like her. The projects are planned to to be sewn by hand but S has been practicing using my sewing machine and decided to use it instead.

She used green felt to make the ears and hand-sewed them in place. Because this elephant was going to a little baby I advised her to leave the button-eyes out and replace them with hand-sewn eyes. Now the baby can’t chew them off. The baby, who is about 3-months-old, was just beginning to use his hands and we found out that the elephant’s trunk was just perfect thing to grab with tiny fingers.