Shelburne Falls Romper

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a blog post by Rachel of Stitched in Color announcing a contest using the fabric Shelburne Falls by Denyse Schmidt.  The contest was to use at least one print from the collection and make anything you want.  I took a look at the fabrics, which by the way is a beautiful collection, and chose a print that would easily work for my little baby boy, who isn't really a baby anymore, but rather a big ole' toddler.  Once I ordered and received the fabric, I went to our local fabric store and found a nice linen and a zipper that coordinated beautifully.

I had a pattern in mind the whole time, one that I have owned for a few years and never used, Simplicity 2264.  Opposite to many in blog land, I am actually a big fan of the major name pattern companies.  I learned and grew up using them, so I never have had a problem with them in general, with the exception of a few over the years, heck, everyone makes mistakes.  Too bad this was one of them.  Nothing was wrong with the pattern itself, but rather the instructions or manner in which they wanted you to construct this fairly straight forward baby romper.  My main complaint being that in the pattern instructions, they had the ends of the zipper tape totally exposed in the back neckline.  Who wants their precious baby to have those darn rough tape ends rubbing on the back of their neck?  Not me!  Thankfully, I have enough sewing experience to know how to remedy that and rather enclosed the zipper tape ends into the bias tape binding that you can see in the above photo.  I wasn't too happy with that treatment either, and would have preferred regular facings, so next time I will probably do that instead.  The zipper installation was odd, doable, but odd, and the leg band installation was far from perfect too, not my fault, but rather the weird instructions.  Even with the faulty instructions, you can totally make a great little romper with the pattern, I just think the pattern could have been written better and with a baby in mind.

I do think in the end that it turned out pretty precious, and my older son referred to it as a "gentle dandy outfit, that he did not want to wear." Obviously I found this hysterical.  I love the little details of this romper and instead of doing an applique (like the pattern called for) on the front pocket, I used three little simple buttons.  It has a long zipper in the back for easy dressing and snap tape in the crotch for easy access diaper changing.  This was my first time using snap tape, and I will admit it was pretty wonderful.  I might be a convert.  It is rather expensive, but I used my JoAnn coupon and got 50% off, so then it was more reasonably priced.  It was so nice and easy to just stitch on those snaps rather than installing them all afterwards with a hammer.

I had every intention of this little outfit being for my son to wear on Easter day, but alas it was way too unseasonably chilly, so instead I am saving it for him to wear this summer.  I can't wait to see him running around in it!  It is a little large, but I am happy that he will get quite a bit of use out of it during the year.

This is my entry into the Shelburne Falls Contest hosted by Stitched in Color.  Go visit the entry page and you will see quite a few beautiful projects!