Memorial Day sewing

The kids have been bugging me about making some more clothes for Jack, the American Boy.   Particularly, they thought he needed pjs, shorts and shirts, and underwear.  I set out to make all 3 this weekend, and only got as far as shorts and a shirt, and undies.  I was going to do pajama pants and a red t-shirt with an appliqué to match the pants, but underestimated the amount of red t-shirt fabric I had and didn't have enough left to cut out the sleeves.  I made a muscle shirt instead, and painted it patriotically to go with my kids 4th of July shirts.  I'll do a different colored t-shirt for the pajama pants at some point in the future.  I made some gray shorts with patch pockets.  They came out super cute.  The shorts pattern was this one, lengthened about 3/4" (and I'd lengthen them even a bit more next time) and I winged it with the pockets after reading through a tutorial for pockets on (full-sized) little boy's shorts.

Then the undies.  Oy.  I'd so rather buy underwear for tiny dolls than make them. Small fiddly things with elastic make my head hurt.  But as there is really not much market for 18" boy doll clothes, I got to  figure out underwear on my own.  I started with this pattern, which says it fits 11" waisted dolls (ballpark for AG).  I cut and sewed one pair straight from the pattern and found that they fit around beautifully, but were FAR too short in the rise.  That little bum was not covered!  I did a second pair, adding about 3/4" to the top all the way around.  Better.  I put 1" elastic to make up the rest of the rise, which was still a bit lacking.  I'd like to do another pair, add even more height particularly in the rear, and instead use a 3/4" wide elastic, which would look less disproportionate.  My kids are pleased though, so that's what matters.  

And yes, poor Jack had to suffer the indignity of standing outside in his skivvies.