The Santaquin Little Buck-A-Roo Rodeo is fast approaching, and I am sewing up a storm! Pony Pal Cambria is entered in mutton busting while Cowpoke Titan is doing cash cow. Cambria is hoping to win a belt buckle and Titan is looking forward to grabbing dollar bills off the loose cow running around the arena.
Cambria surprised us all last summer when she asked to enter her first rodeo. She chose to ride the sheep backwards (apparently it is easier to hang on to the sheep that way) and she rode a good long time. This year I asked Mountain Mama Jessica if I could help outfit the kids for the rodeo as a surprise for them. Between the two of us we found some boots for the kids and then fabric and a pattern for me to make them matching western shirts.
Santaquin's colors are red and black, so Jessica chose a black gingham fabric with a red paisley accent fabric. (I love JoAnn's curbside pickup - it means I can still sew while I am sheltering at home!)
The patterns carried by Simplicity, Butterick, McCalls, etc. all were costume-style, and I wanted to make the kids a real working western shirt, maybe even a retro one.
I finally found a DIY pattern online that was a free download, and so far it is working pretty well.
Jessica measured the kids so I could be sure the pattern fit. I am a little worried - in real life, Pony Pal Cambria wears a 6 and Titan a 5, but according to the measurements on this DIY pattern, I should be making a size 4 for both of them! I'm going with my gut feeling and making the size they wear in real clothes and hope the shirts fit.
I'm also personalizing the shirts for each of them. Pony Pal Cambria, like Pony Pal Mila, loves unicorns, so I am going to put one on the front yoke of her shirt. Cowpoke Titan loves Star Wars and so I bought these two patches from an Etsy seller. I am going to swap them out for different ones - these are flimsy and are iron-on only which I did not realize when I bought them.
I always stitch my patches and appliqués down, but the directions that came with these two patches are very clear that they should not be stitched. (As I examined them closely, I realized that they were just pictures printed on fabric, not real appliqués or patches. I think the sewing needle would shred that fabric.)
My goal is to finish the shirts and have them in the mail to Utah by the middle of next week. I can't wait to see how they look on the kids!
