Finished Project: Blank Slate - Retro Romper

I bought a Pfaff! More on that once I've had a chance to play with her and bond with her a little bit.  For now, though, I'll show you what I've been working on for the last week: the Blank Slate Retro Romper.

For the unfamiliar, Blank Slate offers PDF download patterns for kids (and a few women's patterns, too) in sizes 18M to a child's 8.

Seriously, how cute is this?

Retro Romper at the playground

As I think many female children-of-the-80's did, I had a very similar romper to this one when I was a little girl. Somewhere in my parents' photo albums, there's a bunch of pictures of a 5- or 6-year-old me wearing my terry cloth romper on a trip to Sea World. If I had been a little older at the time, I would have looked like an extra from the cast of Meatballs.

When I discovered Blank Slate patterns, I knew that I had to make this pattern for Eva as soon as the weather was warm enough.

Contemplating a slide

As for the pattern itself, it was a joy to sew.  The printed pattern contains clear markings to line up and make it easier to tape the pages together, everything lined up beautifully, and the different sizes were well-marked. The instructions contained a nice amount of detail and were well-photographed. As a side note, this pattern contained one of the best step-by-step sets of instructions for how to apply a visible bias binding that I've run across. I think that a beginner could attempt this pattern and get really nice results.

Nearly all of the romper's seams are enclosed in a visible bias binding. This was a little time-consuming to do, but I think it's pretty clear that it "makes" the garment.

For my version, I used a remnant of red Sophia knit from my stash and strawberry-and-cherry print bias tape that I purchased for this project from Pacific Fabrics here in Seattle.

Love this binding!

I found the sizing to be accurate. Eva usually wears a 2T in ready-to-wear (RTW). She's slightly under average height and is slender for her age (she turns two in a few weeks). I sewed the 2T for her, and it fits perfectly.

The only modification that I made to the pattern was to add a snap crotch instead of sewing the crotch shut. Even though we don't need to change diapers quite as frequently as we used to, I didn't want to have to take her romper off every time that we changed her. To incorporate the snap crotch, I simply bound the inseam with bias tape and set three snaps into the binding. There might be a better way to do this, but this method seemed the most intuitive to me and seems to work just fine.

I really love how the romper turned out, and I definitely would like to make this again. The pattern specifies that it can be used for a knit or a woven; since I used a knit this time, I'd like to try it again in a woven. I might even get ambitious and make my own bias binding!

Until next time!