Mario Memories

My brother D and I are both children of the 80s, so we have plenty of memories of the great 80s classic, Nintendo. I don't know how many hours we logged on Duck Hunt, Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda, and when the SNES came out, Mario Kart. For the most part D did the playing and I did the watching - to this day my hand-eye coordination is kind of unimpressive, even though sewing has helped some - but by the time Mario Kart rolled out, I was up for direct participation in the fun.

So, when my brother announced that he and his wife were pregnant THE DAY before this preorder closed, I knew what I had to do: 

Order it, and not look back, of course! I cannot describe how lovely this print is in person - something about the look of watercolor on fabric just gets me every time - and when I found out it was a boy, a sleeper seemed an all-purpose logical thing to make with it. I went for the CKC Spencer, which I had grabbed on sale during a spring promotion. I had long suspected it would become useful eventually, and so it was:

I will say, CKC's approach to the lining (aka the yellow parts) of the Spencer was problematic. The lining was too short for the sleeper, and while Cotton Lycra stretches, the knit interfacing required to back the snaps did NOT. Well, not as much as it *needed* to, anyway. I was able to MOSTLY account for the difference by stretching the lining a little extra in the neck area, but if I'd had more interfacing I would have *liked* to put one more snap further up.

And, speaking OF snaps... This project was another great chance to try something new. Back when I'd made the Bears that Care Kimono set, I'd used metal snaps, but they... hadn't seemed very stable. The sewists in CKC's Facebook Group recommended Kam Snaps, and though I'd initially balked at the price ($28 for a starter kit plus $12 for the color cards) It turned out to be a pretty good investment. The snaps are way better looking than your standard Joann's metal snaps and they FEEL more stable. Plus I think the males are easier to tell from the females, and there's less scratchy parts to harm a baby if a snap comes loose.

I also thought these snaps were pretty easy to use, and though I procrastinated a bit on trying them due to nerves, I was overall quite happy with the end product.

By the time I finished this sleeper, my nephew W was already born. D and his wife asked me to be W's godmother, so traveled to California for his baptism, and brought this with me as a gift.

Here's me with my tiny new nephew - easily the most chill of my brother's 3 babies - and with my brother and his wife. It was a great visit, and you can read more about it in my SIL's blog. It'll be a little while before W can wear it - I made it in size 6-9 months, and he's about 3 months old in this photo - but I look forward to they day he does.

Also, I'd like to include a link to the image I used for little W's card. while googling "baby sleeper snaps," I got this gem of a comic from Fowl Language by Brian Gordon:

I already read this comic erratically (I am, after all, a parent), but this particular installment just HAD to be passed along to my brother. In my defense, this sleeper only used 16 snaps. I know because after I saw this, I counted.