Peter Rabbit Dungarees (Toddler)
One of my friends had a gorgeous son in November of last year and I thought a pair of dungarees sized for a one year old would be a perfect 'just because' gift. Most of his clothes are hand-me-downs from other friends' children and so a brand new outfit made just for him felt really special.
In terms of fabric, I've had this Peter Rabbit cotton print hanging around in my stash since I made a 1960's style apron from it last summer and, as luck would have it, I had just enough left to make the Love Sewing magazine free kids' dungarees pattern.
After printing, assembling, and cutting out the pattern, I cut out my fabric pieces and started questioning why kids' clothing wasn't the only thing I made since everything seems so much easier and the yardage required is so much smaller than for adults' clothing.
The process was incredibly straight-forward and, since the garment was so simple I made sure I took the time to be a good little seamstress and actually pressed and finished every seam as I went along. I don't have an overlocker (a serger, for my American friends) so I finished every seam by pressing the seam allowances outwards, pinking the seams to ~1/2" and did a line of topstitching close to each side of the finished seam to help improve the garment's durability given the number of times kids' clothes need washing.
The assembled dungarees, minus buttons and snaps
Once the dungarees were assembled, all that remained was two buttonholes, 4 buttons (for strap adjustability), and 9 snap closures to be added. I used these lovely wooden-effect resin buttons from Hemline as I thought they went really well with the cottagecore type vibe the fabric was giving me, and with my machine's buttonhole setting this part was a breeze. The real challenge came with the snaps…
This was all around 2 weeks after the childrenswear week on The Great British Sewing Bee and I recall seeing the contestants struggling with snap fastenings but imagined that was just due to the pressure of being on the show, I thought they couldn't really be that tricky. I picked up these pastel snaps from Prism and was glad to see they came with the appropriate setter and some vaguely illustrated instructions for use on the back of the packet. After 3 trial-runs on scrap fabric of varying success, I realised that if I were to wait until I was getting them right every time I'd not have enough snaps left to actually finish the dungarees!
The snaps were generally ok to get on, although around the centre of the crotch there were a lot of fabric layers to get through, and my biggest trouble was making sure the top and bottom of my setter were aligned. I think I'll invest in a separate setter in future so I'm not misaligning the two halves of a snap side by millimetres in future; because anyone who's done it before will know that the second you're misaligned even the tiniest bit, the snap closure will end up with sharp points sticking out of the fabric uncovered.
I tested each of the snap closures a couple of times to ensure they weren't about to come apart and, sure enough, a couple came off and needed to be re-set. However, very quickly these dungarees were ready for a final iron and to meet their new owner! I think in total, from printing out the pattern to the final iron, these took me no longer than 7 hours which was a great pallette cleanser in between trickier historybounding projects; I'd highly recommend this pattern for anyone looking to make some dungarees for a baby or toddler - especially since it's free!
The finished dungarees!