Sewing for children-Boys

One of the hardest people to embroider for are boys and men! At least that is what I believe. Although one can use a bit of imagination and that is what I had to do when planning a collection for little boys. The artwork  again was purchased from Mimika (http://www.mimikasartroom.com). My biggest concern when digitizing the designs was the size of the designs. As I envisioned the designs stitching on baby clothes as well as little boys upto age six, I had to rethink my strategy of only having the designs in one size. A simple solution was presented by one of my dear testers who convinced me that the designs could be presented in two sizes but all for the 4×4 hoop. In this manner the same designs could embellish little baby boys’ clothes, hats, etc but also the “Little boys”.  I was extremely excited and my first project was created using Carolyn’s Knapsack pattern. The same knapsack pattern had been used for the Lil’ Ballerinas designs and I was extremely pleased that the pattern could be used for little boys as well. Good going Carolyn!

My next concern was the colors for boys….dh was convinced that any colors I had laid out for possible boy items were too girly so I had to rethink my projects. A dark gray denim was perfect was showcasing the design on the pocket yet sturdy and boyish looking.  As the designs have a rather open look to them I figured this would be my best test in finding out how the designs actually look on dark fabrics. Not bad. While I was planning all the projects…Carolyn surprised me with an adorable backpack/knapsack which simply screamed little boy!

What impressed me was that Carolyn used a printed fabric and instead of embellishing the flap of the knapsack, she embroidered on the bag itself and then made the flap out of a recycled jean (her dh she tells me…uh oh) LOL. Well, not a bad idea though. One could take old jeans and use them to create the knapsack which would be excellent as the fabric will be quite used to the washing and will not shrink if the need arises to ever wash it…and with little kids…one always needs to wash items. The designs used by her were the larger set and I loved the way she combined them together to make a scene….my mind started doing double work here….think curtains in a boys’ room, bed sheets, pillow cases….

I had to really test myself regarding the size of the designs by going and purchasing a 6-9 months overalls set. I really wanted a simple denim overall but couldn’t find any so I settled for a striped denim overall. This is where I saw the urging of my testers materialise….the designs as originally digitized were a bit too large for babies so I went back in my software and created another set but half the size of the original designs. I had not realised how tiny these clothes really are…its been a while and my fun started. Combining two designs for the bib area (which I found very easy to embroider and didn’t have to open any seams…simply undo the buttons on top and side) and then wanting to merge the two sizes, I embroidered one of the designs (larger set) onto the leg. When digitizing I had already set in my mind that the collection would somehow be of boys in the summer time and definitely a sign somewhere saying “Boys Only” and “Gurls Keep out”…. A sail boat, slingshot, kite and a ball were the main themes apart from the boys.

Well, in everything I create I definitely want to give a bit of the heirloom effect so had to  think really hard at what I can do to use the designs in that manner. I kept seeing a little boy’s romper with delicate piping and pintucks. Using a pattern…yes I used a pattern!!!I created this cute little romper with seersucker fabric. With pintucks and piping (made completely in the serger…thanks to Missi) I used only one design on the leg and then doing some editing only stitched out the little boat between the pintucks near the collar. Not exactly a complete heirloom but close…..