New Ikatee sewing patterns

Now that I’ve been making clothes for myself for several years, and that Sophia is a bit older and doesn’t grow out of things quite so quickly, it feels like a good chance for me to add to her handmade wardrobe.

Sewing for her hasn’t consumed my ‘to make’ list as much as I thought it would but now that she is almost 2, she gets excited about everything and is having more personal preferences over what she likes to wear, so I’m really enjoying making new clothes for her.

We recently became the first bricks and mortar store in the UK to stock the adorable collection of babies and kids patterns from the independent French pattern company Ikatee. I’ve chosen my 7 favourite designs from their larger collection of patterns and in this post I want to show you a few of the things I’ve made using them.

You can check out my latest video below where I’ve tried to capture Sophia wearing them...

The two patterns I’ve used so far are the Stella Blouse and Dress and the Sintra unisex sweatshirt. Their patterns offer two size ranges so some styles come in 6 months to 4 years and some in 3 years to 12 years.

The Sintra has the smaller size range and comes with lots of options to add cute appliqués and pockets. As I was using this really lovely lightweight sweat shirting with an arrow design, I decided to just keep mine simple.

I also used the same fabric for the cuffs, hem band and neckline instead of the ribbing. I decided to alter the direction of the arrows as the fabric has a little bit more stretch in that direction. I did have to lengthen the neckband pattern piece and to do that I used a similar method that I showed you in my jersey neckband video where I hold it in place and stretch it round the neckline before trimming to size and sewing on. Find my video on jersey neckbands in this link.

I love the little poppers at the shoulder seam and I used some of our rose gold snaps, applying them on with my trusty Prym vario pliers! Having bought and made similar style tops for Sophia in the past, this type of neck opening certainly makes it a lot easier to get her dressed and undressed – the little wriggler she is!

I made the size 24 months and I think it fits her pretty well with room to grow. As the patterns are all fairly loose fitting Ikatee recommend that you mainly go by the height measurement when choosing a size, rather then just automatically picking an age group.

My second make is the Stella blouse, which come in size range 3 years to 12 years, and I choose the sleeveless blouse version and made it in some of the beautiful kokka waves double gauze - which comes is three lovely colours!

A girls gotta eat and I have to use strawberry yoghurt as a special treat for all the pictures I was taking!

I made the age 3, which inevitably is a bit big but I think the loose style still looks really nice and there is plenty of room to add a vest layer underneath before it gets warmer in the summer (I say hopefully!).

This fabric does have quite a loose weave and an almost spongy texture – which makes it perfect for summer, but it does fray more than a normal cotton fabric. I’d recommend overlocking your seam allowances! I even overlocked my edges before prewashing the fabric.

The details in the design of the blouse are lovely with the ruffle that extends front to back as well as the eyelet opening at the centre back, so I can see why its labelled as an intermediate skill level. For the sleeveless version it recommends using a bias strip or pre-made bias binding for the arm hole, but as the fabric was fraying quite a bit by this point, instead I decided to use some of our Prym Forming tape interfacing (which I first talked about in this post and video).

I ironed it around the arm hole opening before sewing the shoulder seam and then overlocked the edge and pressed it back to create a hem which I then top stitched in place. I don’t think I would have done this on an adult garment as I would be worried it might still not be stable enough buy for a such a little thing for a child, I think its fine.

The neckline opening at the centre back is a nice detail and functional too as it makes it super easy to get it on and off over her head! I used some of our capel Liberty bias binding and a cute bunny button from The Textile Garden.

I think they are both really lovely patterns and the little jumper especially is one I'm sure I will make again and again - I have so many off cuts of my own jumpers to use up!

Here are all the other designs we now have in stock.....