Shake It Off

My good friend Karly is taking all the craziness that 2014 brought to her and "shaking it off" - Taylor Swift style.  She's invited everyone to join in by making something inspired by one of the many looks in Taylor's Shake It Off video and then link it up here.  If you haven't seen the video before, there's lots of fun inspiration and Karly has a clip on that contest page if you're curious.

My first thought was to make the kitty sweatshirt Taylor wears in the ballet scenes.  It's an oversized cropped sweatshirt with a kitty face on it so what's not to love?  The color of Taylor's sweatshirt is this subtle pink so I used one of my old coffee stained sweaters to upcycle a chunky pink sweatshirt for Bean.  It's Kids Clothes Week this week and the theme is upcycle so I've had a lot of reuse ideas in my head.  I didn't crop the shirt since I wanted it to really fit as an oversized layering sweater.

The pattern I used for the sweatshirt is the Beachy Boatneck by Blank Slate Patterns which is an old favorite of mine.  They're having a sew-a-long in the Blank Slate Patterns Facebook group this week so I had that pattern on the brain.  It's meant for regular knit fabric, but I like the boatneck neckline so I winged it with this old sweater fabric.  The chunky ribbing of the original sweater is making the 3/4 sleeves bell a bit which I like.  Once the sweater is washed and dried it'll take care of some of the extra slack.  The ribbing also meant that a freezer paper stencil would be really difficult so of course I decided to make ANOTHER sweatshirt for Bean using a white french terry from my stash.

I pulled together a quick stencil (my masterpiece is the one on the right hehe) and for some reason I fell in love with how irritated and over it my version of the kitty looks.  If he could talk, he'd definitely say "meh."

For this top I used the Ziggy Top pattern by MadeIt since I had the pattern out for a jersey I made the other day anyway.  It has that perfect oversized shape already so all the effort could be focused on the stencil.  I made a size 3T according to the chart knowing that it was supposed to be a roomy fit and it came out exactly as I had hoped.

As much as Bean is obsessed with her new kitty sweatshirt, the main outfit is my favorite.  In the scenes where Taylor Swift has the microphone she's wearing a sleek all black outfit.  I used a long sleeve Charming Tee (coming soon from Lil Luxe Collection) and the just released Slim Trousers from Lil Luxe Collection (*affiliate link).  Bean got REALLY into the singing with her frozen microphone.  She was SO LOUD hehe.

The Slim Trousers have these cool ankle zippers, but I had two 7" polka dot zippers so I extended them up the leg.  The front pockets are functional and look so cute with the contrasting polka dot fabric.  The waistband is flat front and back with an invisible side zip.  The construction is really straight-forward and I love the stylish look is gives without the bunching of elastic.  However, there is an elastic waist option and I have already made a couple pairs of pants using just elastic in the back and I love that look too.  The pattern is on sale for a limited time at only $7.00 so I'd grab it (*affiliate link) soon!

We had a rare February day where it almost hit 50 degrees so we had a lot of fun taking pics outside.  This is the first time that Bean has been really excited about posing.  She doesn't stand still very well (TONS of energy), but she was super into posing this time.  She was cracking me up the whole time.  Hopefully we'll be having fun with the next few photo shoots we do.  It's back down to under 20 degrees now so that'll be it for outdoor shoot for awhile, I'm sure.  For now I'll leave you with a ridiculous .gif of Bean taking the Shake It Off theme and running with it....