Kids' Clothes Belgian Style week 3: Crafterhours

Another week, another amazing outfit in the Kids' Clothes Belgian Style series! Today, our guest is the amazing Adrianna from Crafterhours. Together with pal Susan, Adrianna creates fun yet stylish clothes for children - and sometimes for herself as well. On top of that, Crafterhours also features great crafting projects and has an incredible collection of tutorials (59 and counting!). Make sure to check out their blog, and their pattern shop - the Narita Dress is an instant classic.

   

 Thank you, Adrianna, for sharing your amazing talent with us!

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Hello StraightGrainers!  I'm Adrianna and I blog with Susan over at Crafterhours.  Come say hi sometime!  I know you've already heard from the extremely talented Kristin and Venus, so you know I'm here to share how I was inspired by the crazy cool Belgian kids' clothing style.  I lived in Europe for 3 years, so I'm no stranger to the whimsical, yet timeless styles for kids that you see there.  There's just something about the prints, clothing combinations and designs that you can't typically find stateside.  Luckily we are armed with our sewing machines and Pinterest!

I was super excited to be included in An's invite for this series.  I figured the classic, yet kid-appropriate Belgian style would be a no brainer, and a ton of fun too.  But it turned out to be too much fun.  I sketched and pinterested and hemmed and hawed for weeks before I finally decided to just go with my gut.  There was just too much amazingness out there.

The first thing that drew my eye were the super gathered short skirts in crisp cottons.  I just loved the silhouette of the overly-pleated and flared skirt on a little body.  This little skirt is a simple rectangle skirt gathered into a flat-front, elastic-backed waistband.  I made an extra wide hem to give it some weight and style.

I'm a knits girl, and I loved that most of the Belgian styles mix wovens and knits.  This little top is just a simple t shirt in a fun pique knit, but for added style I threw on a peter pan collar and put a little tuck in the sleeve.  I like how it adds a little girly style without a full blown puff sleeve.

My photoshoot assistants and I agreed that the fedora made her very "Gretl" from Sound of Music, which is totally Austrian, not Belgian.  Points for close geography?

One website I saw featured fun colorful suspenders, and I happened to see this bright pink pair while I was out one day, so those got added too.  Along with a fedora.  I probably could've added a cardi too. The layering of different colors, prints, and textures was probably my favorite aspect of the Belgian style.  So many options!

I say this a lot, but this is definitely one of my favorite things I've ever sewn.  I told Susan that I want to make 1 bazillion more of these skirts.  My peter pan collar drafting skills need a little work, but the top was simple and fun too.

Thank you so much for the invitation and for introducing us all to Belgian style, An!  I hope that it starts making its way west, as most fashion tends to do :)