Thursday 27 February 2014

What's in a name?

When I was a little girl, I had a lot of fun looking for items with my name on it.  Fortunately, I was lucky enough to be given a fairly popular name for a girl born in the '70's.   By my reckoning, my sister was not so lucky and we were never able to find stationery, books, clothing etc with her name on it however hard we looked.  She did share the same initials as a regional airline but it didn't survive and all of its labelled goodies - like the toy handbag she was given - disappeared too.

I have friends who I suspect will also have a little trouble finding named items for their children.  Maybe that isn't important to them but I can be pretty certain that at some point one of the kids will want their name on something.  Anything.  Big or Small.  Just their own thing with their special name.

So, when I saw the wonderful personalised name fabric designed by Shelley Aakjaer of ShelleyMade on Spoonflower I immediately thought of my friends' kids (and my unfortunate sister..…)

I ordered some for each small child and made them a pillowcase using the instructions for an envelope or "housewife pillowcase" that Shelley has on her own blog

fabric is Spoonflower Kona cotton





Each pillowcase has a contrasting trim near the top.  For the lilac pillowcase I used a white cotton, and for the blue pillowcase I used a blue dotted cotton fabric.


I particularly like the flaps on these pillowcases and they remind me of the sorts of pillowcases I would spend a small fortune on in a fancy boutique.  But, these are definitely one of a kind and, hopefully, a special little something for these kids!




spot the fabric scraps and thread on the floor!



I also bought a fat quarter of the blue name design in the Spoonflower organic cotton interlock knit fabric.  I used the Oliver + S field trip t-shirt pattern again and use the blue fabric for the front and back and a plain white knit fabric for the sleeves.

front

back

I used the flatlock stitch on my overlocker to sew the sleeves and body pieces together for a 'sporty' look




and used a triple needle coverstitch for the hem and sleeves



Although the Spoonflower organic cotton interlock knit has about 25% stretch along the crosswise grain, I think I should have cut the neckband a little longer than the pattern piece.  The stretch on the neckband has distorted the colour a little compared to the surrounding fabric and, unfortunately, I did not have enough remaining fabric to cut another neckband.  There is also a bit of show-through of the base fabric near the stitching line.

Nevertheless, I am really happy with how this sporty tee turned out and hopefully it will fit the birthday boy for quite some time.  I cut a size 2 because the t-shirts I made about a month ago will not last much longer for this growing lad!

A final little note about the personalized fabric.  One yard of Kona cotton fabric was enough to make a pillowcase.  I think the service and pricing that Shelley offers is very reasonable: she charges $10 for each individual allover design in the colour, size and style of your choosing.  I certainly cannot be bothered spending time designing something like this - and nor do I have the talent to do so! -  and am very happy to pay someone else for such a great looking product.   Plus, Shelley answered my emails the same day I sent them and within hours I was ordering fabric from Spoonflower!  I was so impressed I bought other designs….

3 comments:

  1. I am sure the recipients will be very pleased. You must be the only person in the world who knows how to get such a good looking flat lock stitch from the over locker. Perhaps you will be good enough to share some tips.

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  2. I really enjoyed this post... I was one of those people who struggled to find things with my name on! I've just heard that the latest range by one of my favourite fabric designers has my daughters' name in it... yeah!
    I've been thinking about ordering from Spoonflower and your beautiful work keeps inspiring me. The finishing on all items is fantastic... Kiran and Divya are very lucky!

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  3. I'd love to know if my overlocker can do that too. lesson please!
    the fabric and projects are great. My friends and I used to think it was hilarious to find Mills & Boon novels with the name of someone we knew as the heroine and then give the book to them as a gift.

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