“Puuheppa” overalls with a few more inches

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Some of you will remember these overalls that I made Frida not too long ago. I still love the pattern, and they are just wonderful in use – practical, comfy (I think), and sweet looking, just the way I like it in a garment.

Well, I made them in a size 74, which fit perfectly at the time – but Frida is growing a lot at the moment, and within a month they were starting to look a bit short on her. As they are still nice and wide, I decided to lengthen the legs, using the contrast fabric. And this is the slightly blurry result.

Lengthened Puuheppa overalls 

I simply cut off the legs just above the elastic, making sure the edges were alike and even, and made a pattern for the added length based on the shape of the legs above the cut. Sewed the pieces together, topstitched the side seam as above the cut, attached the new leg bottoms to the overalls, topstitched the seam, and finished with elastic at the bottom – just as they were before. Easy-peasy.

In my opinion, they’re even cuter now than they were before – this is definitely one of my favourite patterns during my time as an Ottobre subscriber. I may just be making another pair soon.

Clowns and Angels

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Yesterday, we all went to Fastelavn – you know, the thing I told you about the other day. And Ronja was indeed an angel – here she is on the wings.

On the wings 

On the wings  

Saturday I had been making an outfit for Frida as well – a clown costume to be exact. I based the costume on the Onion pattern 10009 that includes a pair of basic loose pants, and a blouse that buttons on one shoulder. I modified them a bit – the pants are meant for rib at the lining and at the ancles, but I decided that elastics in dotted casings would work better for my tiny clown. The blouse pattern is meant for a knit, and has a rib at the neckline – I switched it and went with wovens and a clown collar at the neckline. I covered the collar edge with bias tape, made from the same fabric as the collar. Then I embellished it with a tiny pocket and two flower-buttons.

A colourful clown 

I threw all kinds of colourful fabric in the pool; Michael Miller, Amy Butler, Kaffe Fassett, and a bunch of other stuff - and above you can see how it all turned out. Below, you can see the caring big sister holding hands with the little clown, while they’re having their picture taken together with Ronja’s friends Emma and Ida.

Fastelavn 

The Fastelavn-party took place in a gym, and all the kids lined up in different lines according to their age, to beat the cat out of the barrel (this very traditional event at Fastelavn has got to make no sense to many of you – read more about it here - about halfway down). Ronja had fun with her friends, and although I think the experience was a little overwhelming to Frida, she found it exciting as well.

Afterwards, Frida and I went to meet with my mothers group. It has been quite a while since the last time, because we’re all working now – but we had such a nice time, and the kids are just growing up so quickly. It was great to see them all again, and to watch the children play! Frida was exceptionally tired when we went home, so she had herself a good long afternoon nap.

Our little one

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Playing - in her new overalls 

I have been wanting to write a bit about Frida. She’s 16 months now, and still our little one, but then again, she’s not all that little anymore. Her personality develops with every day that passes, and it is a joy to see! She really does light up a room and most of the time she’s just a bundle of joy! She has a will that surpasses several of those in the otherwise strong-willed people in this family, and she can definitely be a handful! Above you see her wearing the Puuheppa overalls – did I mention I love them?!

She walks now as her preferred choice of transport, but she didn’t give up crawling easily – still turns to that, when she finds it useful. Teaching her how to eat on her own is coming along slowly. It took our little handball player a while to stop throwing forks, plates, and cups (and anything else for that matter) through the air, whenever one was within reach. It’s almost under control now, and she does drink and eat on her own – when the food permits and it suits her…

Afternoon biscuit

And talking of playing handball – she is pretty good at throwing a ball, and sometimes she nearly even catches it when it’s thrown to her. We have been joking with her throwing everything, but it seems to be working, ’cause she’s rather good, and Ronja loves to play ball with her! Earlier it was sometimes hard to entertain her, but at the moment, she has become quite good at playing by herself for a while, concentrating on a toy or a book.

Looking out  More modeled pants

Getting older for Frida also means closing in on the palate surgery. As I have mentioned before, she has a cleft palate which is going to be closed in surgery when she’s approximately 18 months old. We don’t know the excact date, because they’re unable to give us a specific date earlier than about 3-5 weeks prior to the surgery. So during the coming two months, we need to get her off the night-bottle – she still has a small bottle of warm milk before she goes to sleep. And what’s worse, we have to wean her off the dummy! Good thing she’s so fond of her security blankets – that’s going to help us in the process.

Afternoon sky 

Meanwhile, she still sleeps like a baby during the night – and I know a lot of people to whom that would mean sleepless nights, crying, days of an unimaginable tiredness that only parents understand, etc. Not here though, in this house the term ‘sleeping like a baby’ covers sleep from 6.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m.

Altogether, she’s just one lovely little girl!

“Puuheppa” overalls

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Some of my Finnish readers will have to correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that “Puuheppa” means something like wooden horse. I just made the “Puuheppa” overalls from the latest issue of Ottobre, but I chose to make them without the horse. I have been making them over a few nights this week, and while they may not look like much, I totally adore them!

 

I love the shape, the pleats, the pockets, the front bib - and the things that didn’t turn out quite the way I expected, don’t matter that much. However, I’ll tell you about them anyway, because there is at least one thing I would do differently another time.

I used a rather sturdy corduroy for these overalls, because it is still pretty cold in Denmark. I combined it with a fine cord from Hilco for the pockets and bib. When I was hemming the bottom edges of the legs, I didn’t consider the fact that the heavier fabric would take away some of the elasticity in the elastics, but that is what happened. So for someone else making these in corduroy, I would suggest that you take out a few cm of each elastic, in order to gather the legs a bit more.

 

I used some quite big wooden apple buttons, and they were just about to give me trouble because of the size of the button holes needed. Inside the bottom of the front bib, there is some seam allowance from the joining of the two pieces, and it kind of puts a limit to the possible button hole size. Still, I managed, and I can’t wait to see Frida wearing them! I topstitched the sides of the pants, to make the seam lie nice and flat on the inside of the overalls.

Wonderful pattern – warm recommendations from me!  :)

By the way, I wanted to bring your attention to this searchable Ottobre-database that Teri made (who does beautiful sewing herself – go take a look at her blog, it’s worth it). The database is brilliant, because it means you can search for the things you want to sew. For instance if you search for “pants” and “74″, it will show you all the patterns for pants in size 74, that Ottobre has brought throughout the years – and now know in which issue to find your pattern. Great job, Teri!

 That’s it for now – I’ll see if I can get a modeled pic of Frida wearing the overalls later on.

Soft, warm, and pink

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Alright then. I have to say now, that the object here is not so much what I made, but the fact that I made something.

Vilkas in pink 

That being said, Frida needed some new pants, so I digged up the Vilkas pattern from Ottobre, that I used a few times before, and this time I went with a soft and warm, pink velour. I made them the same size as before, except slightly longer than earlier – and they fit fine. If anything, they’re a little bit big. I think I proved, that this is a versatile pattern, right? ;)

Vilkas in pink - tag        Vilkas in pink - detail

I’m happy with the result, and more importantly – I did some sewing, and it felt pretty good! :)

 **UPDATE**

I’m getting several questions on the waistband, so I want to share the source for the instructions. Charlene from the Ottobre Group did a photo tutorial on the subject a while ago. It explains how to serge on the elastic, and I wanted to give it a try, even though I normally use my sewing machine for that. It worked really well, so this is definitely a recommendation!

White world

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 I woke up to a beautiful sight this morning. Our garden is covered in snow, the sun is shining, and moments ago I sent Mads and Ronja off with a sled to play in the snow.

Ice on the branches 

So what am I doing back here? I’m sitting on the couch, covered with a warm duvet. Frida and I took over Mads’ flu that put him out of business for a few days, and now I just hope that she and I will be well for tomorrow when there’s a big Christmas party at Mads’ work.

Karen and her family were supposed to visit us today, but of course I had to cancel that as well. Bummer. However, 12 hours on a plane isn’t much fun if you’re coming down with the flu, so it’s a good thing they will be back sometime during the next year!

 I promised you guys a picture of Frida wearing the Dolly daisy dress, and this is it.

Frida modeling the Dolly daisy dress 

There was just no way to get her to stand and not chase the camera, so you will have to do with this sitting image of the dress. I can just see her wearing this dress along with the little red shoes from my own childhood – she’ll be adorable.

I have been receiving a few e-mails and comments about the Onion-patterns that I have used quite a bit. I think you will be interested to know, that coming up in my next post, I’ll be announcing a give-away. Maria from ShopOnion.com has been kind enough to donate some patterns for you guys – and no worries, the patterns come with an English translation. So check back soon! :)