Sint Gear

Perhaps my favorite part of Sinterklaas is that I make warm wintery apparel to be given at the beginning of December. This means my big holiday gift projects might make for a busy Thanksgiving weekend, but they leave my December open and relaxed...though I'm pretty good at managing to fill it up anyway...ahem... As the weather cools off, I'm always glad to have already given these warm and woolly delights sooner rather than later.

This year baby Sijmon got two pairs of store-bought wool socks. That's what he needed most. They have not been photographically documented as they aren't particularly exciting and well, they may have been misplaced....several times...isn't that always the way?

I think I was most excited about Willem's gift this year, a jacket from the Japanese book Boys' Clothes. Once again, I was impressed with the intuitive, simple and easy to follow pictorial instructions. I've told so many people that Japanese patterns are much easier to follow than English, but I'm fairly certain that not a soul has believed me. This one however, threw me on the materials list. Usually, I just look at the picture or reference my list of common Japanese sewing terms. It looked like a woolen jacket trimmed with bias tape, but something was different in the picture and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. So, I asked my friend Q to ask the original Wabisabi Mama. The notion in question turned out to be corduroy bias tape, definitely not something I've ever worked with or seen before. I made it with brown corduroy from my stash and paired with with a perfectly sized piece of what I believe to be wind-block fleece sitting on the remnant table at my local fabric store. The corduroy really makes all the difference in this sweet little jacket, thanks to you Wabisabi friends.

The last two boys received pajamas. They got into their klompen and tried them on before the sun was up and put the PJs back on for bed after the sun had gone down so the lighting is less than ideal in these photographs. Nothing much I can do about that I suppose, save changing our latitude 2.58 degrees or so...easier said than done. I made Johannes's with pattern from the new book Sewing for Boys. A classic look for this charming little man of mine. 

For Miles, there was a pair of pants with trains on them that I picked up at an antique store a couple of years ago. He began wearing them recently, but the rise was excessively high, the elastic was shot and the cuffs were tattered. I freshened them up for him and made a matching top using the 90 minute shirt tutorial. Someday I'll get another photo that shows you the blue embroidered engine on the front of it and the envelope style neck opening, but for now, just imagine it.

And speaking of imaging I think that's as close to a white Christmas that we'll get this year. I can't complain too much though as three hour park excursions are also quite merry.