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Chef outfit



Pattern: Ottobre 1/12013 #17 Chef Emil jacket, #18 King of the Kitchen hat, #19 Relazed pants
Fabric: Thick white rodeo cotton 1.375 yds $6.59 (JoAnn Fabrics), 70% polyester/30% cotton black gingham check 3/4 yd (~ $4.00 Hancock Fabrics)
Notions: 7 blue buttons for jacket, 3 tan buttons for pants, elastic for back of pant's waitband
Total Cost: ~$11.00
Size: 104cm jacket, 52cm hat, 92cm pants
Child's Age: 3
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I decided to make this chef's outfit for Super Disgusting's 3rd birthday because he's at that age where he loves playing with the toy kitchen and bringing me orders of food.  Also because I'm up to my eyeballs in plastic toys that are literally going to put me in the looney house and I had no desire to buy him any more.  So he gets the hand-me-down plastic play kitchen and a new chef outfit.  Is that lame?  It's all about managing expectations. Right?


I made the smallest size available in all three pieces. I found a really good white cotton for the jacket and hat at JoAnn Fabrics right away, but no luck there with the black gingham check.  I finally found some at Hancock Fabrics. I like it because it's a poly/cotton blend and it won't wrinkle. It's light-weight and he can wear the pants like regular clothes.  I didn't have black buttons so I just used some blue ones from my cheap Walmart stash.  There's a lot of top-stitiching on the the pants and as a default, I started with black thread.  I decided that was boring and switched to aqua.  Then I thought that might be too much so I changed it again to aqua and navy. ??? I never made up my mind.


The only thing that came out poorly was the embroidery on the hat.  Ironically, I was hell-bent on getting this right.  I tried to do it first as a machine embroidery. It didn't look good.  Then, I tried to hand embroider it like a machine.  Yeah, that was kind of dumb.  Then I decided to get serious about it and hand embroider it with some kind of loop stitch I invented using embroidery floss.  It came out fabulous!  Until I went to sew the band on to the top of the hat and realized I had marked it upside down.  Ottobre people, it would help people like me if that had already just been on the pattern.  At that point, I rebelled against my drive for perfection and decided to go on.  Super Disgusting is kind of an up-side-down fork guy anyway.


The outfit came out great.  I was very pleased with it.  I intended to make the t-shirt too but didn't get around to it. Maybe later. I was sewing the pants the morning of his birthday! To save time, I omitted the back pockets and only did the flaps, and alos the fly because he's three and these pants have elastic on the back of the waist which is actually perfect for him. I have to say, I've really been enjoying my subscription to Ottobre.  I love having a collection of patterns to chose from for any of the kids whenever the mood strikes.  Now if only it could be this way with my Burda subscription.


Comments

  1. I love it. I was given a Ottobre subscription for Christmas though I haven't made anything from them yet. I did think the chef outfit was cute in the magazine. And now I think it is even more cute. I love how you did it with the contrasting thread.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a great pressie. Looks like it came up really well. I'd love to make this little outfit, I just need myself a budding chef! Lovely sewing job

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