4th Birthday Shirt - Burda 9/2015 #139

Thanks everyone for all your lovely comments on the last post - that project clearly struck a chord with many of you because it's been a while since I've received so many comments!

To prove that it's not all sewing dresses for me around these parts, I thought I should post this year's birthday shirt and dress made for my kids on their respective birthdays. I cannot believe that this year Toby turned 4 and Anna turned 7 - I'm some of you long time readers will remember a time before I even had any kids. Clearly I've been blogging for way too long.....

This year I let Toby pick the fabric for his shirt while we were shopping at the Remnant Warehouse a few weeks back and he picked out a pirate print cotton - such a typical boy!

I used Burda 09/2015 #139:

This shirt is a miniature man's shirt, complete with opening sleeve placket and pleated sleeves, which made it a little fiddly to make but it is a cute style. I left off the welt pocket at the front because I didn't think it would be that noticeable in this busy print. Instead of buttons I used plastic snaps so that he could get the shirt on and off himself.

Size wise I found the pattern to run a little large, but in kids that grow quickly I guess that's a good thing but it was still a little bit of a surprise since I've found that Burda's kids patterns are usually spot on. Toby's measurements matched those for size 104 perfectly and it fits him well around the body but the sleeves and the shirt seem a bit long.

But it certainly doesn't stop him hamming it up for the camera:

For Anna's birthday dress (made back in January), I used Burda 08/2014 #147:

This is a super simple pattern - essentially just a rectangle, that I simplified even further by leaving off those ruffle sleeves and the ribbon tie waist - apparently 7 years old is too old for those features! And she wanted this dress shorter, which given that the main reason that I sew her dresses is because she's too tall for RTW dresses there was no chance of that. She is definitely growing up too fast for my liking.

I used a rayon fabric bought from Spotlight quite a while ago, and sewed on some mini pom pom trim around the neckline to jazz it up a little. I also replaced the ribbon at the waistline with some elastic instead. That gap-toothed smile seems to indicate that she's pretty happy with it!