Wool Onesie | By Katie
"There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing." - A phrase often spoken in Norway, or at least so I've read among the pages of "There's no such thing as bad weather" by Lind Akeson McGurk. I wholeheartedly agree, however when it comes to tiny humans, the "good" clothing is costly, especially given that the higher cost and quality items only get worn for maybe a season, or a full year if you are lucky. I had the idea of taking older, used "good" quality items, piecing them apart and re-sewing them into clothing a small human can fit for a much more affordable price. 
As the pattern was pieced and sewn together with my new-to-me serger, I was pretty happy with how the front and back came together:
I started by shopping second hand websites such as ThredUp, and Poshmark. I searched local thrift stores, unsuccessfully as merino wool is not a commonly worn and donated item. The sites are pretty neat as you can sort and filter by material, and price. I found a few sweaters all under $10. For this project I used one sweater equalling roughly $3 with free shipping, then another for $5 with $7.67 in shipping which I had not realized this site sometimes offers free shipping, others it does not, depending on the seller. It's hard to tell how much saving I ended up with when spending $17.03 in fabric when that is about how much merino wool can run by yard off the bolt. Something to pay attention to when sourcing materials.
This was back in September when Hadley was still wearing a 12mo size, since then she's moved into 18mo clothing which meant a larger pattern piece. I had to be a bit more creative when getting the sweaters to fit the size cut outs I needed to piece together the onesie. Mainly in the body length, I started by picking out which sweater would be the main body, then color blocking the legs with the secondary sweater and using the secondary for the arms and neck cuff as well.
Enough words. Here are some visuals. Mostly for myself for future up-cycle projects.
First - I used the existing sleeve pieces as ...big surprise, the arm pieces. Mainly lining up the pattern where the widest of the pattern fits onto the existing sleeve. I also left the cuffs in-tact so I did not need to cut and attach new cuffs.
I was on a roll when cutting the pattern and figuring out where to cut each sweater section, unfortunately meaning I did not document with photos, which would have been helpful. I ended up with the black/rose sweater for the main bodice, cutting just below where the crotch would be, and starting the grey sweater to include enough from just above the crotch start to the leg bottom. I attached the pieces together to create a diagonal vs. a straight seam. This took a little bit of brain power to figure out where to attach and sew on the diagonal. Here is what that looked like laid out:
Both R and L front sides looked a little wonky before:
But ultimately landed where I wanted. Diagonal line where the contrast happens, finishing to match the length of pattern piece. After the front R and L pieces, I repeated the same for the back panel (not pictured):
After enough times utilizing the seam ripper to perfect the diagonal color blocked pattern pieces - I called it a night and laid out all the pieces with the zipper to get an idea of what we would end up with:
Before attaching the collar and leg cuffs, I needed my model to do a fit test. After this fitting I opted to slim the legs down and went back over to taper from the hips to the ankles:
With this pattern, I struggle with the collar. Ultimately I thought this looked good until...
I zipped it together. You know what, I don't really care. I will get to try again later. I know the mistake was I backed off with the seam allowance at the end, and it would have sewn off a little more as I surged, but it was too late to go back. It zips, it fits, I'm happy with that.
The end result. A warm baby ready for winter activity with her new wool baselayer.
