Winner of Tardis Top Giveaway

I’m delighted to announce that the winners of the Tardis Top Giveaway are Tegan and her daughter Clara. Tegan said:

That is amazing! My daughter’s name is Clara, named after the most recent companion, and my name is Tegan, who was a companion in the 80’s. To say we are obsessed with Dr who would be an understatement! Clara would wear this top everywhere!

Tegan can you please send me a message with your details and I will pop it in the post to you. Email is : thesedaysarefew at gmail.com

I know your little one is too little to care too much what she’s wearing but I hope you enjoy seeing her wear it 🙂

Doctor Who Tardis top – Giveaway

Yes that’s right, a giveaway! To celebrate the new season of Doctor Who which starts tomorrow, with a new companion no less, I am giving away this newly sewn item. Leave a comment below, or leave a comment on my instagram giveaway post (fionatelford-sharp on Instagram) saying why you would like a lovely toddler size 2 Tardis top, and I will choose a winner and announce it on Friday 21st April. If you’re a sewist I would love it if you also followed my blog or my instagram.

So why am I sewing size 2 toddler clothes when I haven’t had a toddler in my life since 2010? Well it all started with this amazing Doctor Who Tardis fabric from Trisha’s Fabric Store. The fabric was quite expensive – it took me until my third visit to commit, but when I did I bought some plain blue as well and whipped it up into leggings. I am totally in love with the leggings in their Tardis-y awesomeness (separate blog post still to come when I can be bothered taking some photos).

I was then left with a dilemma – enough leftovers of the gorgeous, expensive Tardis fabric to make something for a child but not for an adult or larger kid, and my kids are all of the larger kind now. And I couldn’t bear to see it go to waste, so the obvious solution seemed to make a small child’s top and give it away. I have to admit I now have an inkling why elderly ladies often spend their time knitting baby matinee jackets and bootees. I’d forgotten how satisfying, and relatively quick it is to sew cute little toddler clothes.

So if you’d like it, leave a comment, and I hope you win. I took it down to Target this morning and compared it and it’s a good match with their size 2 clothes. It has quite a high neckline and is lightweight t-shirt fabric. The colour was hard to photograph but is somewhere between the brightness of the outside shots and the washed out inside shots. I’ll post anywhere in the world. If you’re interested read on for the sewing details.

 

This is an Ottobre pattern, coincidentally from 2010, when I last had a toddler – magazine 4, pattern 5 ‘Loikka’. The fabric is cotton/ lycra knit. I knew I was planning to pass this on to someone else’s child so I made an extra effort at the finishing on the inside, top-stitching most of the seams with a double needle then trimming away the excess at the back. (How’s that for priorities, my own children get the slap dash efforts). The pattern called for ribbing at the cuffs and collar but I’ve just used the plain fabric itself, which worked well. I’m super pleased with how neat the finish is where the neck binding tapers next to the placket.

The Tardis applique has vliesofix ironed on the back then is ironed onto the garment and stitched down with a narrow zig-zag. I was going to do buttons on the placket but was a bit stymied when I remembered Spotlight are now only selling buttons in expensive packs of 5 or more, for at least $5 a packet. It’s a bit of a rort, if you ask me; surely a small blue button shouldn’t be more than 20c each? Anyway I did find some loose ones at Trisha’s but then discovered I had some snaps in my sewing drawer which look great – winning at hoarding sewing supplies 🙂 It makes me smile to think eventually a cute little 2 year old child of Doctor Who fans like me will get to wear it!

 

 

 

Good dog

I used to have an awesome t-shirt with K9 from Doctor Who on it, it was black, with a silver K9. I wore it to death, and sad was the day when I had to consign it to the bin.

So then I bought a new, yellow t-shirt from Red Bubble, with a nice big K9 on it, but it was kind of yellower than I thought. Very, very yellow. Almost gold in fact (which is what the colour is called so I kinda should have expected it), and I only wore it about twice. At the same time I bought the t-shirt I bought some amazing striped fabric from Spoonflower to make a long sleeved t-shirt to wear under the yellow K9 shirt, but we know how that t-shirt worked out. This afternoon I decided to hack the yellow shirt and make a new version with the stripes. It’s turned out to be my new awesome K9 shirt. Recognise the stripe colours?

The pattern is Ottobre 5/2008 Raglan t-shirt. I traced the size that matched my bust measurement but when I looked at the pattern pieces they looked too small, so I checked and the t-shirt bust measurement was going to end up with about 8cm negative ease! Being too lazy to trace a new size I just enlarged it when I cut it, placing the pattern pieces about 1cm away from the centre folds, and also adding 1cm to each side of both body pieces. I held the sleeve pieces on my arms and they looked way too small too, so I also added about 2 cm in width to those at the underarm, tapering to the actual pattern width after the elbow. I don’t know what Ottobre were intending but the sizing seems a little weird on this one. My fabric is quite stretchy but I wouldn’t have wanted it cut as small as the pattern.

I had 1m of fabric but the repeat of the stripes is quite a long way apart, so even with that much fabric for a t-shirt, I had trouble fitting it on and matching the stripes. I got them to match at the side seams, but couldn’t make them match at the raglan sleeves and still fit them on. So I shortened the sleeves to bracelet length to fit them on and have them at least match each other. I think they look fine though with the raglan sleeve seams not being colour-matched. I did the neck band in the traditional way of seaming it into a circle, folding it with wrong sides matching, and stretching it to fit, which I like for this shirt but did make it difficult to judge how long it needed to be. It was too long the first time and bagged out at the neck so I had to unpick and redo. I like it now though. I used a double needle to do the narrow hem on the sleeves and hem.

Raglan sleeve seam

Side seam pattern matching

K9 himself has been appliqued using Vliesofix. I cut him out of the t-shirt with a few mm of yellow showing, ironed him onto the striped shirt front, then machine zig-zagged all the way around him with a narrow stitch. I agonised over where to put him but I think he’s ended up slightly too far to the left. Never mind. In case you didn’t work it out, the stripes are the pattern of the scarf worn by the Doctor who was played by Tom Baker. He was my first Doctor when I was a small child, watching the Daleks from my spot hiding behind the lounge!