At the moment I am knee deep in the planning and making of little autumn and winter wardrobes. During a year when money is especially tight, it seems that everyone needs at least a little bit of everything, and there are more people then ever to consider. It’s quite a challenge and I’m hoping to prove myself worthy. In the meantime, here’s a small sampling of the outfits of summer.

When I pulled out my box of toddler summer clothes, I quickly came to the conclusion that it was entirely possible that Elijah spent the whole of his 3rd summer naked. Knowing Elijah, that’s not entirely out of the question! Either way, the couple of over-sized stained tee-shirts and a pair of shorts or two, wasn’t going to cut it.

I sorted through my fabric stash and I sorted through my store of patterns and thought things over. My first though was several sweet little one-piece romper style outfits. But that idea was quickly discarded when I realized how cruel that would be to inflict on a child who’s really getting the hang of this potty thing! Separates, with easy elastic waist-bands, was the way to go.

The plan was for five sets. I ended up with three and a half. There is a pair of shorts, in a dark green knit (not pictured here), that got a lot of wear, but never a shirt to go with them. And another pair of would-be brown and cream striped shorts, that were cut, but not exactly sewn together. And that coordinating gingham top? Still kicking around the realms of my mind…

Still I managed to pull together enough that he made it through the summer decently covered (well at least in public).

All of the shorts were made by tracing other shorts and the two collared shirts were based off of a well fitting basic button up. The blue shirt was is basically the shirt from New Conceptions Baby Essentials, enlarged to fit .

All of the fabric came from my stash. The Michael Miller Bunnies print has shown up in a couple of projects in the past. The organic, color-grown, green cord shorts are the same fabric that I made my diaper bag from. Both the organic baby-blue and cream steeples and the cream rib were left-over from making baby clothes. And the celery dot fabric, I actually purchased to make an Easter outfit for Galen before getting distracted by other projects. All of the buttons came from my Grandmother’s jar.

And now, it’s back to the sewing machine for me!