Toddler Jacket, A Pirate, and A Monster

To get this kicked off I'm going to show the jacket for my kiddo that I just finished last weekend. I have never made a jacket. Clothing-wise I usually stick to Halloween costumes. When I was a teenager I was interested in making clothes, but over time (and inches) I lost interest. When I moved out of my parents' house I didn't sew at all. Then I got married and....well, I'm surprised newlyweds get anything done at all.

After that life just got fast. I still occasionally made things and even bought a "As Seen On TV" Easy Sew. (If you've never seen one it's an extremely basic sewing machine that just does straight stitches.) In May of 06 I had Alex. Once out of the fog of new parent-syndrome I started getting interested in sewing again. Also like some new parents I never finished anything. I had a lot of things cut out or just pinned that never made it to the machine. With my husband in Iraq for the last two years and my no-nap-as-of-two kid not a whole lot of projects got finished then either.

I did make my son's pirate Halloween costume in Oct 08.


Most of my sewing was hand sewing of silly stuff (stress relief). Here is a sock monster I sent to my husband from the Stupid Sock Creatures kit I bought.


Everything has now settled down and I have more time to work on stuff. I got a new sewing machine (Thanks Mom!) and completed my first project on it. A jacket for my kid.


This is the first big thing I've completed in a long while and, while it looks like a beginner effort, I'm very proud of it. The pattern I used was Simplicity 5284. (Couldn't find on Simplicity website so it's a link to PatternReview.com).

I'm still debating my next project, but I'm at a stall because I'm snowed in and have no thread. :(