Orange Check

 The siren song of the Walmart mill end precuts enticed me into getting two yards of vivid orange knit, with the idea I'd use it to make something for the kiddo.  What would that be?  Enh, I'd figure it out.

And here we are.

Fauxaloha

Another shirt for the kiddo--not quite as straightforward this time, because I had slightly limited yardage...because I made a shirt for him from the same fabric about twelve years ago

Then:

Now:

Klax!

The kiddo is a big fan of somewhat obscure older games, and a bigger fan of art for those games rendered in dubious style.

I had cut out pieces for a sweatshirt for him in November, and did not want to make another plain gray garment for him, so I asked him what graphic he wanted for the front.  I figured I'd make another freezer paper stencil, whatever it was.

Time passed and I asked if he'd chosen an image yet; he had not.  This repeated a few times, until I got an all caps email, subject line AWESOME, text PUT THIS ON THE SHIRT

So I opened the email and was confronted with...this

He likes Klax a lot, so I wasn't surprised he chose a graphic related to it...but...that it was this, and not the simple "highly stylized hand held up vaguely like the letter K" graphics that are more common...yeah.  I wasn't going to do this with freezer paper stencils.

Granted, I was willing to try, but I knew it wouldn't go well.  However!  I have a hobby friend who has access to direct transfer film printing and set me up with a professionally printed image fused to black synthetic knit.

Now...I hurried a bit in my eagerness to get the graphic sewn to the front piece.  But!  I did get it centered, so that's something my experience has improved over the years, and then I sewed the shirt together in no time

Gray Hoodie

I made a quick hoodie for the kiddo a few years ago from double knit polyester, which you probably know isn't always the softest stuff, so, when I found a few yards of a french terry(ish) fabric in the Walmart mill end pre-cuts, I knew I'd use it to make a snugglier jacket for him.  Eventually.

(but first I used it for the sleeves on a jacket for me)

I used New Look 6766, modifying the pull-over hoodie into a zip-front hoodie, which is easy enough because the original pattern has a center front seam

Cool Splat Sweatshirt

Here's another project made (mostly) with fabric gleaned from the last trip to the craft thrift store.

This one's for the kiddo!

Surfluorescent

 I have made only T-shirts and sweatshirts for the kiddo over the last few years, to the point where I wasn't even sure if he would like the feeling of wearing a button-up woven shirt, but, oh, the tacky loud possibilities available in printed cotton broadcloth, right? 

So I showed him this

and asked if he'd like a shirt made from it. Of course he would.

So I grabbed McCall's 6613 and finagled out just about everything needed to make a short sleeve small

He's wearing it now.

Blue GuGuu

 The kiddo was bored at a school in-person testing day (he's still doing remote school, so he doesn't have many chances to be bored at school) and drew a very sarcastic picture of Puyo Puyo Carbuncle.  I thought the drawing was fantastic so recently copied it onto freezer paper to make a stencil...which ended up not sticking well to this Walmart mill-end precut synthetic fabric, so my copy ended up with Issues.  I did consider adding more decoration to obscure it, but decided not to over-complicate things.

I turned to the Puyo Nexus Wiki to reference how to write the various forms of "goo" that Carbuncle says, drew the hiragana really fast, and made another freezer paper stencil...which I tried tacking on with masking tape.  The masking tape stuck fine to the slick back of the freezer paper, but not to the fabric, so I ended up holding the paper down with various paint pots.  I did a base layer of white paint for both, and used fabric medium, and still made a mess.  The kiddo thinks it's funny, and that's all that matters.

Carbuncle Gonk Split

 I forget how I was introduced to the concept of a split shirt--I think it may have been a snarky Discord post, with the first examples being AliExpress offerings where the graphics were very obviously printed after the front fabrics were sewn together, and very obviously misaligned with the seam.

The idea of making a split shirt from scratch bubbled in my back brain for a while, and then I realized I had the perfect opportunity to make one for the kiddo from the fabric left after making the previous two pairs of pants--I had been able to eke out a short sleeve shirt for me from the remaining cloth after a previous pair of pants made from a 2 yard pre-cut, so I knew there wouldn't be enough left over to make a traditional sweatshirt from a single color (and the fabric is all wrong for short sleeves.)

So...maybe...this could be the opportunity to try a split shirt?

And then I cut out the pants and it seemed like there might possibly be enough left of each one to make two slim fit sweatshirts for a skinny kid

but

no.

I would not second guess myself and I would make that split shirt.

Which of course brought up the question of what graphics?

I decided this would not be the time to surprise the kiddo and asked for his ideas.  I specified that I'd rather not do memes, because, when he is over a meme, he is over it, and I do love him but I don't really enjoy making things that he won't even look at once he no longer finds them funny. (Shrek shirt, I'm so sorry you weren't appreciated longer.)  So, yeah, I wasn't willing to do anything related to Better Call Saul (which no-one in this household has ever watched.  He just likes the memes.)

Outside memes, he does like his mildly obscure video game characters.  He emailed me images of his chosen two: Puyo Puyo Carbuncle and Lego Star Wars Gonk Droid.  I made freezer paper stencils and sewed everything together and presented him with this

Cayenne Pants

 The previous post mentioned buying two Walmart mill end pre-cuts that were different colors of the same fabric, and here are the pants made from the other color

 

 

Charcoal Pants

 We walked past the aisle where the Walmart mill end pre-cuts are, and I glanced over, not expecting to see anything--and saw that the bins were once again full.  I detoured over and poked quickly through everything, choosing a piece of hounds tooth double knit for me and two rolls of what was obviously the same knit in different colors to make more things for the kiddo.

I started with another pair of sweatpants, this time in charcoal

Green Pants

 Continuing to use New Look 6766 and mill end precuts from Walmart to make pants for the kiddo, I made these

More Kid Pants

 So I mentioned, in the post about the sequin fabric, that there hadn't been anything that struck me as suitable for making pants for the kiddo.  There were some that were close, but I was so overwhelmed by completely unexpectedly finding the perfect sequin fabric that my standards for pants cloth was raised accordingly.

When we were shopping the next week, I glanced at the pre-cut bins and noticed that at least one of the "would have been considered good enough had they not been compared to perfection" fabrics was still there.  I did not get anything that day, but I thought about it, and when we found ourselves low on a particular grocery a few days later, I took the opportunity to go back to that Walmart and see what, exactly, they still had.  (Even though the needed grocery item was an Aldi thing.)

I got 3 yards of a kelly green french terry that is heavy enough to work for pants, as well as possibly another try at making the kid's perpetual green jacket (because his arms are now very much longer than the second version's sleeves), and two yards of a somewhat sturdy light heather gray rib knit (I know most heather fabrics have a significant amount of polyester for the contrast, and I haven't done a burn test to see if there's any cotton at all in this.)

That rib knit is where I started

I have mentioned his noodle physique, yes?

Ties Dyes

 No, I didn't do the tie dying--I used tie dyed shirt parts that were in the things the friend brought from the relative's stash (thanks!)  There were several tie dyed shirts that had areas cut out, probably interesting graphics to use for other projects, leaving 90% of a (seemingly) usable shirt, so I decided to combine things back into a single loud shirt for the kiddo.

 

Test Pants

 It's almost time for the kiddo to have to leave the house for end of the year standardized testing.  As a remote learning student, he has gladly adopted the "pajama pants all day" lifestyle, and, as a teenager, he also has significantly longer legs than he had the last time I made him a pair of "wear out of the house" pants.  So! Time to make a quick pair of pants.

I probably could have used kid-sized KwikSew 2544 again, or even KwikSew 1650, since his waist measurement is still very slim, but I decided to go ahead and use the view B pants from New Look 6766

  as long as possible, and with suitably small amounts of elastic

(the elastic is actually fairly stretched to fit the hanger there)

The Kid Is Still Growing

I made a coat for the kiddo in the summer of 2020, right before he started virtual school in the autumn of 2020, and he hadn't needed a coat since then...until...I checked the forecast and saw that it would be below freezing the morning of his booster shot.  So!  I ended up with a day to make something.

I didn't think I'd have time to make a nice coat, but I wanted to at least make something to wear as another layer over the hoodie he already had (which...his arms are a bit long for that, now, too.)

So I grabbed a fabric I had thrifted, when I was looking for fabric to make the replacement hoodie linked above, and threw this together--including cutting the pieces--yesterday.

A Calm Shirt for the Kiddo

I found a few useful-looking pieces of cloth in the Walmart mill end precuts last weekend.  I did not need any more cloth.  But.  They were one piece of black and white stripe knit and two pieces of french terry, one black and one a sort of...sagey muted mint green color.  My tendency to go for loud prints on sturdy cottons plus the Walmart mill end precut section's tendency to present mostly pure polyester means I don't have a lot of plain knits, so I went ahead and got them. (yes, one is striped and not plain, this is not about that.)  

I had wanted to make another sweatshirt for the kiddo, just because.  So I got KwikSew 1650 again

 it goes up to kid size 14, but is a 1980s pattern, so it's a very generous kid size 14.  I didn't measure the kiddo to see what size he'd technically need, because things like t-shirts and sweatshirts have a wide range of "acceptable" in terms of fit.

I used the ribbing of view A and the larger shoulder inset of view B and ended up with this

Not a Morning Person

 So, when the kiddo came in a bit after 7am and asked that his mask be washed so it would be shiny clean when we left for a thing at 9am, my panicked reaction was

1: It can be washed, but it may not be dry by then

and

2: So it will be faster to make another mask

(he only has one he likes--with elastic going behind the head instead of around the ears--because he did virtual school last year, and will again this year, so has left the house very very few times since March 2020, when the school year ended early due to a combination of pandemic uncertainty and a tornado destroying two schools in town)

So I looked at my smaller yardages stash for probably longer than I needed to--again, not a morning person--and picked out a relatively neutral cotton print, the bit of high thread count sheet left over from the back of the bedspread I made at the end of 2019, and a piece of the thrifted heavy embroidery stabilizer that I have used for almost anything but stabilizing embroidery.

Ended up here

And then realized that I probably could have just reconfigured the elastic in the reusable fabric mask he got in the "goodie" bag with his second vaccination.

Not a morning person.

They're not pajamas if they have pockets, right? right?

The kiddo has a dentist appointment soon.  Like...tomorrow.  And the only pair of pants he has that fits is this pair of sweatpants of dubious style I made for him a month ago.  Which is what he wore to the dentist appointment last week. (That was the regular check up. He has some baby teeth that should have fallen out a while ago, so he's going back to get those taken care of.)  I have suddenly gotten self-conscious and absolutely can't have him wear the Same Weird Pants to the dentist again. (especially since the rest of his outfit was the coordinating cat print stew shirt and the hoodie jacket made from the same fabric as most of the pants.  So.  It was A Look.)

Yesterday I grabbed Kwik•Sew 1650 and some strangely dense, but relatively muted, thrift store woven yardage (may or may not include synthetic fibers), with the intent to sew the pants very quickly today.  Which, I did, but a lot of the sewing happened during the very concerning events of the day.  But, dentist appointments go on, and there was no way I was going to a store to buy pants that fit him, so I sewed while history was being made (derogatory)

Iron it?  Why would I do that?

I'm sure it'll be fine once it comes out of the dryer.

Birb Shirt

 It is a fundamental truth that I will never again assemble anything with quite the same chaos as the stew shirt.

But it also a fundamental truth that the drawer in which I keep cuts of knits intended for doll use is very very crowded.  So.  I decided I would again assemble a patchwork of knits and use Kwik•Sew 1650 to make another sweatshirt for the kiddo.

The nature of the cloth curation for potential doll use meant that there was a clear coherence in the color palette, which I figured would be a mark against this project in the kiddo's eyes, but I guess he still perceived it as chaotic enough

Plus, y'know...birds

Blues Stripes

 Another fast Quik•Sew 1650 sweatshirt, nominally View A but I accidentally cut the length needed for View B and decided to go with that.

 and of course the rest wasn't so straightforward, because it's me