The Refashioners 2017 - #SuitsYou

I've not really joined in with many sewing community challenges. I think I tend to assume that my skills are a bit of a joke compared to the incredible talents of others that participate. But I'm working really hard at making time to sew, and part of that is finding as many reasons as possible to MAKE myself sew!

The Refashioners is a blog series and community challenge that has been running for a few years now. There is a different theme each year, and participants need to refashion a garment into something new. The #Jeanius challenge last year pretty much blew my mind, and #GettingShirty the year before was fun too. This year was all about suits. The hashtag? #SuitsYou

My participation keen-ness has varied throughout the month, from absolutely determined, falling asleep making plans, to feeling completely sorry for myself that I was probably never going to make it to the charity shop at a time when a)I have time to browse and b)they have anything decent. So I was incredibly lucky that Mr M came home one day having drawn on his trousers with whiteboard pen. (Important point - most people think that whiteboard pen washes out... I can confirm that it does not).

After 3 trips through the washing machine with various stain removers, the trousers were deemed a lost cause. This was my moment to pounce! Not technically a suit, but suit trousers count, right?

The start point (yes, he does wear odd socks)

Mr M is not a large man, and these are slim fitting. The fabric provided by these suit trousers was very limited. So I decided to play it safe - baby clothes are quick to make AND use small amounts of fabric. My initial thought was to make a teeny tiny little suit (so cute), but in reality Flower would never wear it and it would just be a gimmick. And lots of work.

So I decided to make a pair of dungarees. I was choosing between these options:

GBSB From Stitch to Style

Wild Things

Making Baby's Clothes

I wasn't really happy with any of these options. The GBSB dungarees start at size 1, the Wild Things smallest size is 6-18 months (Flower is 8 months, but that is a huge size range and I just didn't believe it would fit well at all), and I've made the 'Little Linesman' outfit before and it is a very wide fit. Flower is very narrow.

So I was grumbling about having to buy ANOTHER pattern, when I found this:

Wild Things

It is from the Wild Things book, so it still has that scary sizing, but I think that a dress is a bit more forgiving size wise than a romper. And the mouse was just such a sweet idea.

The pieces were *just* narrow enough to fit onto the trousers.

Pieces placed but not yet pinned, hence the pieces curling up!

I had plenty of fabric left over to make the ears. I used the pockets for the whiskers, which was probably a mistake as they frayed like crazy. Here it is:

She does have 2 legs, she's just 'walking'.

I used felt for the pink bits of the ears, the nose and the claws. And the pocket edging is just a bit of scrap fabric that I found in my scrap basket.

I think it is pretty cute, but as I suspected, it is far too big. It will fit her better in a few months. 

We attempted a photo shoot, but she's never still, so it was a challenge!

After dinner, we discovered the downside of baby pockets...

Absolutely chock full of half chewed food. Which I had to fish out. Lucky me, eh?!

I know that this isn't technically a suit (I'm not sure Mr M ever owned the matching jacket), but I'm counting it as a #suitsyou challenge entry!

Hope you like it!