In related news, if you are not into kid sewing, I get it, click away now. I feel like I've crossed over to the dark side. Not that there is anything wrong with sewing for little people, I just remember that pre-momhood my blog feed was full of adult fashion and sewing blogs. If someone made the occasional kid gift I'd scroll past with a "cute" and move on. Not now. I have been taken in. Every time I have time to sew, despite having very few garments that fit or aren't disgustingly stained or stretched out, I cut out more clothes for my daughter. They are so quick and gratifying. I can combine small bits of fun fabric and it always looks good on her.
I feel like I have discovered a whole new world of sewing. One dominated by cutesy print knit fabric, facebook groups and impossibly perfect styled flat lay garment shots (there will be none of that here, I have no extra time to artfully arrange colour coordinated toys on a sheep skin rug).
Pros (or fanatical ravings):
- The designs are super cute and remind me of boutique styles.
- The designs are super comfortable and functional as well.
- The fit is fantastic and accommodates a cloth diapered bum.
- The instructions are super thorough and feel fool proof despite no hours of sleep the night previous to sewing.
- The photo diagrams have introduced me to new easy sewing/serger techniques.
- A lot of the clothes lend themselves to using small bits of fabric combined so they are even better stash busters.
- Any time I have needed an item for my daughter, there has been a pattern in the B&T library that has matched that (aside from swim wear).
- The patterns cover a size range from newborn to 6T giving them a lot of potential for re-use.
- The PDF has you overlap tiny squares when assembling the pattern. This is so much harder to get right than aligning diamonds/triangles. B&T you let me down here.
- My daughter is in the 85 percentile for height and weight and I've found so far that she is wearing the size that corresponds to her age so the patterns may run large. For example, she wears a 2T in Carters, Joe Fresh, Peckle, etc but fits a 12-18 month in B&T. That said, the sizing chart has been accurate in choosing which size to make her for the patterns I have tried.