Mr. Smarty Pants

Because I have three boys, it would stand to reason that in terms of their clothing, I should really be benefiting from the economy of scale. My husband, once he accepted the fact that he'd never have a daughter, consoled himself with the fact that at least we'd never have to buy so much as a single onesie ever again. But that turned out not to be true. Yes, I did save and recycle a good deal of Jake and Charlie's clothing for Michael. (And in turn I have gladly passed some of that on to the lovely and uber funny Jodi over at Pistols and Popcorn, for her twin baby boys.) But there are sometimes reasons why a new item of clothing here or there does become necessary. Michael is a winter baby, and his brothers were born in warm weather, so not all of the clothes match the seasons for which they're sized. Certain t-shirts have just too many spit-up/juice/I-have-no-idea-what-the-hell-that-even-is stains for me to bring myself to put them on my child or give them to anyone else's. And sometimes, sometimes, I feel like little Michael is deserving of just one or two things that weren't worn by anyone before him.

But I'm trying so hard to buy less stuff. So I'm learning how to make it. Like I mentioned in my last post, I am not a seamstress. I do have a really basic sewing machine, and I sort of know the basic fundamentals of its use. And guess what? Turns out that bare minimum knowledge is absolutely all that is required to make cute clothes for my boys. Oh, and a pattern. And the willingness to make a mistake here and there. To wit: My friend Caroline, whose daughters occasionally don these super cute dresses that she makes, directed me to the Kinokuniya store over on Bryant Park. Downstairs they sell these very adorable books with super cute patterns for kids clothes. So I bought one. Even though they're in Japanese. I figured, How hard could it really be? If you can read Japanese, probably not very.

Bless you, internet, for being so lousy with free information and instructions and tutorials. And let us now praise Dana at Made, for this excellent and idiot proof pattern with instructions for making a simple pair of boy trousers. I will never buy another pair of of toddler trousers from Tea or Lucky Wang again.

Below, the one and only Charlie models the fruits of my labor of love.

The song that inspired the project:
The Kinks' Dedicated Follower of Fashion