My colorful boy

A friend of mine lamented on the current trend for brightly colored 'skinny' pants for women.  She was hoping that when she returned from her deployment in Afghanistan, it would have worked its way out of the American fashion industry.  Well, I am living in Europe right now and I can tell you this trend shows no sign of fading.  Plus, it seems to be an equal opportunity trend and completely gender neutral. 

The little boys I see walking to school are often wearing brightly colored tapered pants.  One little guy in particular wore bright red on Monday, green on Tuesday, and a beautiful cobalt blue on Wednesday.  So, I could not let my little guy be left behind.  Especially since he regularly tells me "I love all colors!"

And this week is Boy Week on PRP; so I combined that love of color with another love of my boy ... superheros. (correction:  It is white sheet week at PRP. You are to get a white sheet and modify the heck out of that sheet to produce a cute outfit.  I planned on skipping that event, but evidently, my mind skipped the entire week.  Oh, well I am done early for next week.)  I found great embroideries at my favorite embroidery website.  These were perfect for the look I was after.  With them and my brightly colored fabrics I created an outfit reminiscent of classic comic book heroes with a childlike twist.   

The shirt is made from a sports high performance knit that I bought thinking it would be super practical for my active boy.  Well, I have mixed feelings.  The knit is very comfortable but it's super stretchiness makes it quite difficult to sew.  Even with a serger.  But, I fought with it and came up with this polo style shirt.  I made a collar and short placket on this shirt to keep it from being too casual and used two little buttons to tack down the collar points. And I made wide cuffs for the sleeves.

pocket detail



welt back pockets

The pants are made from a heavy weight twill that was surprisingly soft.  I used Melly Sews' Blank Slate pants pattern and it was great!  (I want to write a full review of these pants, but have not got to it yet... so stay tuned.)  The pants have welt pockets in the back and bag pockets in the front.  It has a zipper fly and I used adjustable waist elastic so that the pants will grow with my boy.  The pockets are lined with a light weight grey cotton.  I also used red bias tape to finish the inside of the hem so I could cuff up  the pants while they are a little long.  This provides a nice finish before the fall growth spurt hits.  I used the coordinating "Pow" embroidery on the pocket to tie the pants in with the red shirt.  Also, if you look closely, the little boy hero on the shirt is wearing a red shirt with yellow pants; yea I did that on purpose!  That is one of the fun things about my embroidery machine, I can change things up so they match what I want and not what the buyers in the store want.

Finally, I made him a hat out of the scraps from the pants.  And of course, I added the "Pow" to that too.  The hat looks like it is a funny shape, but that is actually because my kid's head is long and pointy.  : D