Lil Blue Boo & Dharma Trading Co. design challenge.
Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:39PM 
I'm sure many of you fellow crafters out there follow Lil Blue Boo--I sure do. And I was very excited when Ashley announced her Dharma Trading design challenge. Of course she gave us tons of time to try to put something together, so did I use that time wisely? Of course not. Go ahead and review the "if you wait until the last minute it only takes a minute post". But in my defense, it's been hard to get anything done these days as the three munchkins have been out of school/preschool for over a week (but I'm not going to talk about the snow any more. I just Can't).
Nevertheless, because I already had the hoodie pattern (and had an idea for a fun applique), I thought I'd make something today. Yes, today...the last day of the challenge. So during Will's nap, and after bedtime, I whipped up a little 6m-12m hoodie. I LOVE this pattern! It is so great to work with. And--obviously--it takes no time at all.
I was able to take one of Charlie's old tees...
and one of my ill-fitting plain white tees, embellished with freezer stenciled stars (to make a lining for the hood, which is something I added in)...
and a baby's 'to do' patch I printed onto cotton, then appliqued on...
to create this fun hoodie.
I really wish I had better pictures. You can hardly see the red top-stitching or star lining in the hood, but trust me it's all there and I think it's darling. If I had planned ahead, I could have found a suitable model as no one here can squeeze into this size. But I wanted to do the 6m-12m sizing this go because of the applique. In case you cannot read it, here's the image I made up in my photo editing software then printed onto cotton (a thrifted blue sheet).
(ETA: Here is a pdf you can download if you'd like to applique your own baby to-do list. If you're more comfortable working in word, try right clicking the above image, save it to your computer, open a word document, and click 'insert picture'--you should be able to resize the image by dragging a corner of the image. Let me know if you need help.)
I plan to give this hoodie to a friend who just had her second baby. I'll tuck in a laundry marker so she can just jot down the date of some milestones as the hoodie gets worn by her newest munchkin...it makes me smile. Plus, I really could have used something like this for babies no. 2 and 3--poor things, I was very bad in recording important dates by then. And I have a thing for lists so it's right up my alley.
There will be lots more hoodies in this house for sure--ones that fit my kidlets. I cannot endorse this pattern enough. Again, I just adore it.
ETA: p.s. check out this post if you're looking for more pictures and/or info on how I liked the pattern.
if you're looking for more pictures and/or info on how I liked the pattern.
Reader Comments (3)
Just happened upon this. Very cute ideas here, I bet you will fair well in the contest. Good Luck!
LOVE IT! I also love lists. I make a list almost everyday. A little OCD I know. Did you use Photoshop? I have it but have never bothered to learn how the heck to use it, but if that's what you used I better start learning.
Thanks Melissa & Sascha! Your comments made my day :).
Sascha--I actually used Microsoft Expression, which apparently no one else uses (b/c I can never find info on it). I'll try to edit the post tomorrow to include a link to a download in case you or anyone else likes the list as written and want to use it.
And no, I didn't use transfer paper (though I did finally order some). I just ironed cotton onto freezer paper (that I cut down to 8 1/2 x 11) and fed it into my ink jet printer. Then I heat set it with an iron and prewashed to check for color fastness. I've done that for patches before (like on quilts) & they've always held up fine with later washes. But I'm anxious to try out the transfer paper Ashley talks about on LBB b/c I imagine the hoodies would get washed more & so I'm interested in seeing whether there's a difference. Thanks again for visiting!