I’m so glad to present to you the Love Notions Handmade Holiday Blog Tour! We’ve had four wonderful days of talented sewists, creators and bloggers bringing to you some cool ideas for a handmade gift, from cool crochet headbands and fun pattern hacks to diy lighted stars! Today, on the final day of the tour, I’d like to share a modest offering in the holiday spirit.
Lately it seems like I’m only posting on the blog when it’s a blog tour. Yes, I readily admit to dropping the ball on most things these days – whoever said the second child makes your workload exponentially increase wasn’t kidding! I actually totally forgot to schedule baby T’s first Christmas photos with Santa, holiday cards and even his outfit. I bought a size 12m romper and of course he outgrew it by Halloween. Oh for SHAME! I’d also like to formally apologize for the terribly flash photography on this post. I got a new camera and haven’t even been able to sit down and read the manual, so I’m still clicking away on auto, and therefore, flash. I’m truly sorry for the terrible photos today, but Baby T totally makes up for it, right?
What was I to do? I have gifts to make for M’s teachers, our neighbors, our friends and store-bought toys for the kids. How could I make a gift for my baby? Something that’s quick yet love-filled, and screams “baby boy+christmas cutie”. I looked through the Love Notions catalog of boy patterns and voila! There was the Samson Sweater pattern starting riiight at 12m. Can you say serendipity?
The Samson Sweater pattern is such an evergreen style for boys. It has a comfortably relaxed fit, optional hood, breast pocket and elbow patches, classic or banded hem, and even a way to make it into a button/snap down jacket! I love how the hood and the neckband both are applied together making it just a little different from most others on the market – such a cute design element. It has plenty of ease built in for layering, and I chose to make the 12m size considering all that ease. Here we don’t need to wear too many layers, so my Samson didn’t need to be sized up too much.
Sewing the Samson was a breeze. The pieces came together well, bearing in mind this is an older pattern, it still has all the cool features that Love Notions is known for – trimless pages, complete print chart and layers, lots of cute tips and colored photos to guide you along the way. Sizing is from 12m-14, or a chest of 19.5″ to 33″, and uses just 1.5 yd for the largest size!
I used a french terry in charcoal heather grey from Raspberry Creek Fabrics, and a cotton lycra printed to look like sweater knit from Wanderlust Custom Fabric‘s Fall 2017 round. The french terry has these cool loops on the wrong side which I really liked the texture of, so I left the hood unlined to show off that contrast.
Then I used my (one year old but used twice so it’s new) Silhouette Cameo, and created a sweet and simple boyish cut file for the front of the sweater. I couldn’t find a single file on the internet that I liked that just said “My First Christmas” without a ton of flourishes and distracting elements. What I did like was not free. So I decided to make my own cut file and share it with you all. I used free elements from the Sihouette library to make the tree and star.
While I’m an absolute beginner with the Silhouette Cameo, I really like how powerful it is. There’s so very much you can do with it, that I’ve decided to delve deeper into this incredible craft. Watch out for more free files in the coming months! And don’t forget to download your copy of this fun file here.
Thank you for stopping by! I’m so blessed to be able to be here this holiday season. Please check out the other bloggers in the tour, and give them a shoutout too!
Monday: Handmade Boy
The Wholesome Mama
Four seasons and a Roadtrip
Sew Shelly Sew