Nature Walk

I was terribly excited to get the Oliver + S Nature Walk Pullover & Knit Pants pattern in the mail on Thursday:

I got right to work on Friday morning and made two pairs of the pants.  This was my first try with knits.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly these pants came together.  The first pair was made with some fabric that's been sitting in my stash for awhile -- 100% organic cotton French Terry from fabric.com.  The fabric itself is quite nice but the color I ordered -- lime -- is, well, not (why I ordered this color instead of one of the other perfectly lovely colors, such as navy or brown, I'll never understand but in my defense, the color looked better online).  I had contacted fabric.com about returning the fabric and they were so great about it -- they refunded the cost of the fabric and told me to keep it and either use it for a different project or donate it to charity (shame on me, I chose the former).  Now that's good customer service!  So I stashed it away and forgot about it.  Until I wanted to make these pants and didn't want to run to the fabric market.

Dag is crazy about these pants.  He asked if he could wear them all the time.  Chris calls them his "Las Vegas" pants.  I wanted to make another, less loud, pair right away when I remembered that I had set aside a skirt to re-purpose:

The skirt was just enough fabric to make the pattern in a size 4T (doesn't it seem weird that a skirt that went down to my ankles is just barely enough to make a preschooler a pair of pants?  I know I'm short but I'm not that short).  So, the skirt became this:

Dag pronounced these "too gray" and said he liked the green ones best.  I convinced him to wear the gray ones and Chris took him on a nature walk (naturally).

I spent Saturday and Sunday making the Nature Walk Pullover.  I used corduroy, mattress ticking and a bit of leftover Kokka double-gauze rockets to line the pocket.

Making this pattern is a lot of fun -- I loved the way it came together.  Like all the Oliver + S patterns, it has wonderful details and neat inside finishes.  The construction is quite clever.  It's not a difficult pattern but it did take me the better part of two days to put it together (I'm probably a slow sewer, though).

I'm excited to make more of these -- there are so many possibilities in terms of mixing and playing with prints, textures, fabric weight, etc.  I want to make another one in lighter weight fabric for him to wear as a shirt.  The kangaroo pocket on this pullover is my favorite part and I particularly love how a bit of the fabric peeks out at the sides. 

Plenty of space in there to store leaves, twigs and nuts.  As soon as the weather cools down a little here in Xiamen, we'll take this pullover out on a nature walk.  In the meantime, here's an inside shot: