Guest Post with an Amazing Boy's Outfit

Today we have Stacy from The Land of KA sharing a boy's outfit with us. You are in for a treat with some amazing details and impeccable sewing.

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Boy sewing can be a bit frustrating. Your options are pretty limited when it comes to traditional pattern companies and even independent pattern companies. You get a lot of basics and not much with some personality or interesting lines.
This is why I really like Ottobre for boy sewing. They have a range of sizes for boys and girls, and have some fun and unique styles. Now, they do not have a ton of older boy patterns, but the ones they do are interesting designs. I looked through my 2+ years of subscriptions, and there were a few per issue. Most of them were in the winter issues where they had several options. The summer had less in the ones I have, at least.

The best thing to do with Ottobre is to look at each issue and see which one you would get the most use of it. Just order the ones you want (though, if it is older they may not have it). I received the subscription as a Christmas gift for a few years, and that was enough for me to stockpile some of them. There are only so many ways you can design kids' clothes, so that gave me a good bunch of patterns.
There are two things to know before diving into Ottobre.
First, this is what you have to use to trace the patterns. They are not the most user-friendly. You have to trace the patterns and add seam allowances:

It is a bit intimidating at first, but you get used to it. I used parchment paper and a Sharpie for tracing.
Second, the instructions are sparse in the directions. They will carve out picture directions for harder things like welt pockets and putting in a zipper, but the rest has just dialogue. It is best to know basic construction before tackling one of their more detailed garments. For example, with the cargo shorts here, there were pictures of the back pockets, the zipper, and that was it. The rest had some dialogue that made sense, but still not a lot of detail.
This outfit is from Ottobre 3/2010 and the pieces are #35 and #36. I used an appliqué from the Silhouette store that I cut out on flocked grey iron on vinyl. The shirt was supposed to be color blocked, but I just did it as one piece.
Special Materials required: The cargo shorts are a bottom weight fabric. It uses elastic in the back waist, velcro on the pocket, and a zipper and a snap/button for the front fly. The shirt is two soft knits.

On the cargo shorts I topstitched in red to give it some color punch. Top-stitching in boy clothes is pretty important. You can't do ruffles, ribbons, sequins and rhinestones like girl clothes, so you need something to give it some punch!

Skill Level Required: I would say that the cargos are at an intermediate level with the zip fly, welt pockets and cargo pockets. The shirt is easy for a beginner to make, went together well and l like the fit. It doesn't say to finish the waist edge with bias tape, but that is how I tend to do it for my kids clothes. It looks nicer that way!

Good: This is a great outfit for a boy, and it is something that is very much on trend for them. The cargo shorts take a bit to do with all the top-stitching, but it makes them look more professional. The top has a great fit and he found the whole outfit pretty comfy.

Bad: The Cargo Shorts are a great design, but some pieces didn't fit together so well. It was also a bit of guess work on the construction.
Overall Pattern Rating: This outfit turned out very nice, and he loved it. I will definitely be using these patterns again, and I will make him more outfits. I would give it a 4 out of 5 for the cargo shorts (due to difficulty) and a 5 out of 5 for the t-shirt.
If you want to check out more Ottobre patterns that I have used, I did an Ottobre S.W.A.P. for my son a few years ago.