When Meg asked us if we wanted to write about this topic, I thought it sounded like fun but wasn’t quite sure that I would be able to find documentation of my first outfit…A quick facebook search later and voila- a picture labeled as “Oliver’s first mama-mades.” Whew! Thank goodness for Facebook over-sharing, right? 🙂 Also guess I should be glad that my eldest is only 3 so I didn’t have hoards of pictures to sort through.
My first sewing for Oliver was two pairs of Anna Maria Horner quick-change trousers. I made them when he was three months old, and I had finally recovered from the adjustment of having a baby to have energy to sew again. Those of you who know me know that I have a love of Dr. Seuss so of course I had to buy some Dr. Seuss fabric when I found out I was pregnant. I also bought two sewing for baby books- Handmade Beginnings and Simple Sewing for Baby. I wanted to sew some things for him before he was born, but I taught high school English up until the week before he was born and just didn’t have time or energy to do any sewing! These pants (shorts) started my love affair for sewing kid’s clothing. It was so fun to see my little baby in something I had made just for him!
I have a few pictures to share with you of Oliver in his pants, but please forgive the poor photo quality! These pictures were taken with my phone way before I knew anything about photography! I am not a great photographer right now by any means but it’s encouraging to see how far I’ve come! I really wanted to try to edit these pictures up for you a bit but resisted the urge so you could see them in all their original glory (If that’s even an accurate word to use to describe them-lol).
I highly recommend this pattern as a great beginner garment. There are quite a few pattern pieces and instructions, but she walks you through the construction step by step and because the pants are reversible, you don’t have to worry about finishing any seams or anything like that.
Now you probably want to know how these pants held up for future children, right? Well so far there’s only one sibling to follow Oliver and he was able to wear these pants just fine! The crotch area was a bit snug because he is a chunkier kid than Oliver was and has a big cloth diaper bum. I actually made two new pairs for Eliot during last spring’s KCW and he wore those a lot his first few months. I tried to see if I had any pics of E in the original pants but sadly I couldn’t find any…so bummed.
What about you? Do you remember the first garment you made for your child? Are you preserving it out of sentimentality or passing it on to other siblings? I’d love to see everyone else’s pictures of their first kid’s garment! That is, if they’re as terrible as mine is. Please make me feel better about the horrible photographer I used to be! Feel free to leave a link in the comments if you blogged about yours so I can go check it out.