"Sewing Clothes Kids Love" by Sabine Pollehn and Nancy Langdon is a book full of fun patterns and great ideas. You can find it, among other places, here. I do have to say, however this book is not for the novice sewer or the weak of heart. It contains wonderful patterns, but the instructions for some of them leave out some steps that a novice sewer might not know to do and this could leave them frustrated. I would have to say, if you are a novice sewer, either be ready for a challenge or have an experienced sewer on hand to guide you.
At this point, I have made a few items from the book, but by no means all of them.
I made the Imke shirt which is a knit pullover shirt. It has options for inset sides, short or long sleeves and two different style hoods, or can be made without a hood altogether. Unfortunately, I forgot to get pictures of this before I gave it to my niece for her birthday. :)
I also made the Dortje pants. These are an elastic waist pant with pockets on both the front and the back and contrasting fabric on the knees.
One of my favorite patterns that is contained in this book is the Feliz Party dress. This is a double layer apron style sundress or jumper. It has the option of putting lots of ruffles in the back. I can't seem to resist this option, LOL. I have made several of them.
I have also made the Manhattan Special Occasion dress. This was by far the most challenging of all of the patterns from this book that I have made to date. It had 42 pieces of fabric and several yards of ribbon to contend with. When making this pattern, the instructions tell you to label each piece and label top and bottom on them. It should have also gone on to say to label right and left as well. Let me just say, they weren't joking! Some of the pieces were confusing as all get out and yes, I did manage to get one sewn together upside down. Luckily I noticed it right away. :) This pattern was definitely not for the faint of heart.
The patterns are wonderfully versatile and leave a lot to the creativity of the sewer. There are many beautiful pictures of the different patterns made up for inspiration as well. I do have to say that this is more a book for girls than for boys. A few of the patterns would be suitable to make for boys, but the majority are geared more for girls. There are also several pages dedicated to design and techniques that are quite helpful.
All in all, I really enjoy this book and look forward to making some of the other patterns out of it.
