Sunday Best

Here it is...
The final day of February.
The final day of "Celebrate the Boy" Month.
And I've finally finished.



Quite a stretch of the old sewing muscles (haha)--fully lined boy's dress coat with contrasting collar and elbow patches; matching suit pants; and refashioned man's sweater into a boy's sweater vest.

Altogether, one fine looking outfit on one fine looking Little Man.

Or is that just a mother's opinion? :-)

What I learned from this...
Suit coats for boys/men are just as hard to sew as you would imagine. The coat had 21 pattern pieces. 21. And once you get past the collar, it doesn't get any easier. A set in sleeve is very difficult, especially where you don't want any puckers--that's the difference between a boy's coat and a girl's puffed sleeve. But it can be done--with patience and perseverence. MUCH patience. And MUCH perseverence. (I ripped out and resewed the sleeves 6 times in total).

On the other hand, this was the first time I did zipper front pants. And you know what? They're not that hard! Really! I was truly surprised how well it went. And they fit him really well. The only issue--because I was looking for something a little more dressy than the cargo-style pants the pattern showed, I simply left the pockets off. But I realized afterwards that that left zero pockets. But I figured I could get a pass on that, considering he's only 7! (Of course, it was the first thing he noticed when he put them on this morning)

The sweater vest was inspired by Dana-Made-It's tutorial here, with my own twist (more on that later).

And the most fun part? The 70's department store catalog photo shoot we got to have to model everything...

Awww...my little man is sooo shy, can't you tell?