Big bear and little bear

Hi there! I’m back from my little summer break! It wasn’t really planned, but with moving back to Tromsø, unpacking and starting to work again my blog needed to wait for a while. I don’t think I will be able to blog as frequently as before right now – but we’ll see.

Today I want to show you two projects for the men in my life. A long time ago I bought this lovely blue French Terry fabric in a German fabric store. It’s from the Danish brand Bloome Copenhagen and I really wanted to sew something with it for our (not yet born) son. Time went by, our little one turned 1 and I was finally ready to cut into this fabric.

When our son was born, I was gifted the book “Lieblingsmode Mami made” by the French author Marie-Emilienne Viollet. The original title is “Garderobe idéal de bébé”, but I only own the German translation. It’s a wonderful book with stylish (very French!) children’s garments. One of them is this sweater I chose to make. I changed a few things but left the most important part: the foldover collar. I think it makes the sweatshirt a little more classic and less casual. I loved the outcome, and so did my husband. “Can I have a matching sweater?”, he asked me. How could I say no??

Unfortunately this fabric is several years old and basically sold out everywhere. After searching for quite some time I found another German fabric store that had enough left to cut out a front and back for a grown-up sweater. I had a little fabric left from sewing the children’s sweater, enough to be able to cut the sleeves. I was so happy when I realized I actually had sourced enough fabric to make my husband’s wish to match our son come true!

I don’t own a men’s sweater pattern with the same kind of collar as my son’s (I’m sure they exist!). But I do have a printed and taped version of the Palouis by Kibadoo (blogged about here and here). Knowing how the collar of the children’s sweater was constructed, I simply drafted a collar for the Palouis and attached it instead of the hood. And it worked out nicely! Not perfect (perfection needs a muslin. Or two. Or three), but good enough – everybody is happy.

I sewed my husband’s sweater while he was away and couldn’t remember if I added length to the previous sweaters I sewed for him. I decided to add some length, but it turned out a little too long, and the ribbing could be a little shorter, too. It’s not bad, but I will fix it as soon as possible. I really wanted to take pics while we were visiting my in-laws, so there was no time to re-do the hemband before taking pics.

Aren’t these two cute in their matching sweaters?? Too bad that one of them will only fit into his for such a short time!