I’ve been busy this week sewing for grandchildren, I’ve started making them something for Easter, rather than give chocolate. It’s what I did for my kids as they got so many Easter eggs from other people and at least one child didn’t actually like chocolate very much. This year I’m making dungarees for Hugo, my grandson. My daughter was up last weekend making some for her god-daughter and they looked very cute and fairly quick to make.

The pattern is from Waves and Wild, it’s called Heyday dungarees, it’s a pdf pattern which for children’s stuff I like, I can cope with sticking all the pages together when they’re only little and at least you can print a bigger size the following year. This time I even managed to surpass myself by working out how to only print the size I wanted!

The fabric is a denim look babycord, I bought it at Boyes in Ilkley last week, at first I presumed ‘denim look’ referred to the colour, however on closer inspection when I got home, I think it’s also the cut, the cord is cut pretty short and seems to have a wider trough than usual, making it look a bit like denim, but it feels soft like corduroy. I wanted some contrasting pockets and I found this chicken fabric in my stash which goes well enough. It’s not perfect but to be honest at this age (he’s not yet two) they often hardly wear stuff before they grow out of it so I really didn’t want to spend another £4 on a perfectly matching fat quarter. I felt self pockets could have got a bit bulky.

The pattern is designed to secure the bib by tying the strap in a knot, that seemed a lot of hassle so (with mum’s agreement!) I chopped three inches off and used buttons instead. The only bit I faffed about a bit with was the buttonholes, I hate unpicking buttonholes but I unpicked three altogether! The first one went too low off the facing, then I stitched two but realised when I put the straps next to them that I’d put them too far out as I’d made the straps slightly wider! In order to move them I also had to unpick and lower the bib pocket! I took advantage of this to cut a new pocket as typically, although the chickens go in all directions on the fabric, they were all upside down on the original pocket. Thankfully the fabric is pretty forgiving of all this unpicking!

As you can see, I had the same issue with the back pockets but decided they could stay!

There is plenty of growing room lengthwise as the bottoms are rolled up and there’s lots of strap beyond the button, so hopefully he will get lots of play time in them.

I do like stitching the ‘Made with love by Grandma’ label on!