Sewing for L: Little Elephants

Pattern: Oliver + S Fieldtrip Raglan T-Shirt and Nature Walk Pants

Fabric: Jay Cyn Designs for Birch Organic Fabrics, Just For Fun KNITS, Ellie Fam Pool, about a yard

Notions: Coordinating thread, 3/4" elastic band for pants

Size: 2T

After a lovely weekend celebrating my husband's birthday with his dearest childhood friend and grandparents, some serious cooking and baking (think fresh bread, quiche, apple pie, blanquette de veau), mending a small pile of clothing, and getting some serious headway on my Praline cardigan, (sleeves joined!), I decided to venture once again into the land of knits.                                                                              I chose this lovely little interlock elephant print that, like L's chevron shirt and bicycle set, I purchased during my last visit to the US. I again was looking for a fast PJ project and I must admit to the fact that I am becoming more and more intrigued by knits. My past three knit projects have been with interlocks which are so lovely for their stable qualities and have made sewing very smooth without fears of puckers and bubbly hems. However, I've been wondering about the recovery ability of the fabric. It stretches well but I found that it seemed to stretch out when ironed and not recover so well. 

So, with this project I somewhat tested out different ideas on the fabric. Instead of ironing my hems before sewing I just pinned in place carefully and sewed. And then I ironed. I felt like that gave a better, much less overstretched result. The neckline seems a bit looser due to perhaps a bit of overstretching but it's pretty minor. And it does seem to shrink back a bit after washing and drying.

Otherwise, making the set was just as easy as last time and this time I knew exactly what to expect in terms of the pattern. Everything was pretty easy to do. I left the sleeve and legs a bit longer to leave him room to grow because that boy has grown, again! He's pretty thrilled with it and seems to really like the color which I also find to be very pretty on him. 

As you can guess, I've been reading up even more on sewing knits and all the different stages from cutting to hemming. I have a feeling that a couple old shirts, current members of the 'to be refashioned' club, are soon going to be picked apart and transformed and experimented with using the information I have found. I'm hoping to document my process a bit and share it here. I would also like to try out different patterns and I'm hesitating between the Oliver + S Schoolbus T-Shirt and Made-by-Rae's Flashback Skinny Tee.

 And here is my darling putting all possible stretchiness to the test!