Littlemummy.com

Guest post by Leah

Sewing is making a big comeback at the moment, and there are more and more funky sewing pattern companies and fabrics becoming available, making it really good fun to sew children?s clothing. If you?re a beginner sewer and/or don?t have much confidence, sewing kids? clothes is a great way to start as they tend to be easy and relatively quick to make. You?ll feel a real sense of accomplishment when you finish your first item of clothing, and your child will look great and have something totally unique to them.

Until last year if you wanted to get hold of some of the best childrens? patterns you?d have to buy on E-bay from America, but now they?re pretty easy to find in the UK too. There are a few independent pattern companies that really stand out from the rest.

For beginners, I can highly recommend Oliver & S patterns, which can be bought in the UK from Backstitch. They are a growing collection of stylish, fun, and unique clothing for boys and girls, with super clear step-by-step instructions; and best of all, they even sell licences so that you can sell clothes you make using their patterns. And if you love their designs but really really don?t want to sew, they have a list of retailers selling Oliver & S clothing on their website.

I made the Oliver & S Teaparty Playsuit for my little daughter.

Another fabulous collection of patterns is Modkid, which can be bought in the UK from Sewbox. They are a collection of modern, trendy clothes patterns for girls, including tops, skirts, dresses and jeans. My favourite is the Julia double-layer twirl skirt.

It?s a shame they don?t do boys clothes yet, but hopefully that?s something that?ll come with time.

If you?re a bit more of an accomplished sewer, you might want to try the Danish sewing pattern company Onion. They have some really quirky, individual childrens? sewing patterns. Unfortunately the original instructions are in Danish, but English translations for most of the patterns are available on the site. The current website is pretty difficult to navigate but the lovely owner Maria promises that a shiny, brand new website will soon be unveiled under the name www.mariadenmark.com.