His and His: Spring Shirts for Mr Rae and Elliot

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I made these. I've always been the sort of person who is thrown into silent hysterics when confronted with people in matching outfits in public. But I've noticed something since we've had our little guy -- whenever Nate has to pick out clothes for Elliot, he always picks stuff that looks exactly like the clothes he wears. No big surprise there I guess (a friend explained this phenomenon by saying that dads like having a "Mini-Me"), I just never thought it would happen to us. I have to admit though, when it's your own husband and son, it's actually pretty cute.

: : Pearl snaps on Nate's shirt : :

I made these for a birthday gift for Nate (whose b-day is today!). I hauled out the ol' birthday garland again, made some cupcakes, bought some balloons and this morning he got to open presents. The one for Elliot I guess technically isn't a present for him...or is it? I made another shirt (will post soon) for Nate too so it was a totally handmade birthday on my end.

: : little boy version - about a 4T maybe? : :

Pattern: Simplicity 4287 (I made another one just like this last summer for Summer Top Week)

Fabric: Heather Ross' Happy Campers, no longer available online; it's out of print and can only be found here and there for ridiculous prices.

Pearl snaps: A new addition this time on Nate's shirt. I have a hand-held snap press for putting snaps on bibs and such, but when I tried using it with the pearl snaps I found it cracked the pearly part. So sad. So if you're going to try these, definitely use the hammer/spool method as directed on the package.

This pattern is definitely not a beginner pattern (as I think I mentioned last time). It's got plenty of details that can easily frustrate the beginner. Now that I've done it a couple of times, I like it but it's definitely time consuming. We'll call it a labor of love.