After I put up a picture on my Sewing Kate plus 4 Facebook group a friend asked me to make her one of the Raleigh Rompers. She wanted a girly version so she picked this trees fabric and I had enough of the owl fabric left to make a second one for her. She asked for size 3-6months as her daughter is a delightful little dot :)
Once it was cut out, and the lining fabric for the bodice chosen and cut out then it was time to sew!
Firstly was to attach the lining to the bodice, placing right sides together, pin and sew from arm hole bottom to arm hole bottom.
Then trim seams to achieve a crisper finish:
and turn right side out:
and one of my favourite things, pin and topstitch:
Now is the buttonholes. I had to choose which buttons for the more girly version. My friend had wanted girly and babyish so I couldn't decide between the cats or the flowers. My favourite was the flowers, but the cats are more babyish. I couldn't decide so I allowed the world of Instagram to make the decision for the flowers - they definitely made the right choice I think :)
Once again my automatic buttonholer had a mad 5 minutes when it didn't want to be a button hole foot. I swear it wants to be a toaster or something at times! Anything but what its supposed to be!
Anyway, once I'd finished convincing the button hole foot to be a buttonhole foot I joined the front and back bodice together.
To do this you join the fabric to fabric and lining to lining at the sides. You do this by flipping up the lining and pining it them together, right sides together, sewing in one seam:
Now flip down the lining.
Bodice done! Now for the shorts.
Firstly to sew the crotch seams, as is normal, right side together, both front and back.
Open out both the front and the back pieces and pin together, right sides together at the sides. Now sew:
Then to hem the shorts. Open them out, still inside out, so the crotch seams are at either side. Fold up a small hem and pin and sew:
Next to attach the bodice to the shorts. Place the shorts right way out and pin and sew the bodice to the shorts right sides together:
Now I got to play with my new toy :) My poppers and poppers pliers. They didn't come with any instructions so I had to scour you tube and pinterest for tutorials. After this and some trial and error on some scrap fabric I think I finally got there :).
I had to prepare the bottom seam where they were to be applied first by using interfacing and then turning the fabric over it:
Once this was done I actually found an easier much less labour intensive way for me to utilise the pliers:
Bless the hubby :)
I think these look so much better than when I used to hand sew on poppers, a good investment:
and finally cut open the buttonholes and stitch on the buttons.
I think they look lovely. My favourite one is the owls one, the same fabric as I used before for my niece.
As I said last time this is an easy beginner pattern to start sewing childrens clothes on. The trickiest bit is the lower poppers bit, but I would invest in a pair of poppers pliers for sure!
