Great Wall of China Inspired Children’s Clothing

Even though I’m not eligible to win a prize, I’m sewing along with Project Run & Play for the week 1 “7 Wonders of the World” theme!  (If you missed the news, I’m now leading Project Run & Play!)  It’s too inspiring not to!  Here’s a look at our Great Wall of China Inspired children’s clothing.

Around our house, we have studied the Great Wall of China in our history studies many times.  Since it’s one of the ancient Wonders of the World, we chose to be inspired by both the architecture, and the surrounding landscape.  And we decided to have a little fun too!

For Annie’s dress, we chose to be inspired by the length of the Great Wall of China and sew her another maxi dress.  We started with the Camden Raglan, and got busy designing it into a dress with special little touches.

The first little touch we added was to insert lace on the lines of the raglan sleeves.  It’s a sweet little touch, and represents how the Great Wall of China criss crosses the entire country.

The second little touch we added was to design a bell sleeve for the sleeve hem with more lace inserted at the top of the bell.  Annie chose the length she wanted the sleeves to be, and absolutely adores how they bell out and flow with the dress.

The final touch we added was to leave the sleeve and bottom dress hems raw.  With time and wear and washing, they will curl up slightly.  The intention was for this design feature to mimic and accent the white of the lace and cherry blossoms.

We used this Art Gallery Pandalicious Jersey Knit Yinghua Cherrylight Fabric.  “Yinghua” means cherry blossom.  It’s perfectly soft, drapes beautifully on the sleeves and skirt, and is stable enough to make the neckband turn out perfectly.  Annie styled it with her Panda Vest we sewed for her earlier.  This is to represent the pandas in the wilds of China around the Great Wall.  You can read all about it in that post, but it uses panda fabric from the same line of fabric as the cherry blossom fabric.  And she also borrowed a fan from Allegra for a photo prop.

Next came some raglan t-shirts for the boys.  Yes, more raglan t-shirts for these boys!  What can I say?  We used the Oliver+S Field Trip Raglan t-shirt pattern.  For David we are sewing a size 7 and for Lowell a size 5.

For the fabric, we used some Riley Blake Knit Stripe Aqua/Navy Fabric for the sleeves, neckband, and the back of Lowell’s t-shirt.  We chose stripes to mimic the lines of the Great Wall of China.  For the fronts, we used Riley Blake Designs navy blue jersey knit fabric.

Then came the fun part!  We decided to use our new Cricut Maker machine to make fortune cookie gold foil iron on graphics with two fun sayings.  And the little strip of twill tape represents for the paper fortunes inside!

David’s shirt says “Tough Cookie” with a fortune cookie.  David is quite a sweetie, and like many boys his age, loves to see how tough he can be!   Click here for the free cut file if you want to make a shirt like this too.

Lowell’s shirts says “Fortun*Ate” as a fun play on words about eating fortune cookies and how fortunate we feel to have him as our son!  If you want to make a shirt like this go here for the free cut file.

For the photoshoot, we tried to find a location the was faintly related to the landscape of China.    We found a river, a gazebo, some cement pillars, a lamppost, and a timber frame shelter.

What do you think of our Great Wall of China inspired children’s clothing?  Be sure to go over to Project Run & Play and check out what all the designers created for the 7 Wonders of the World prompt, you’ll be inspired and amazed!  And you can see what everyone else is sewing along here.

This isn’t the greatest picture to showcase the clothing, the lighting is too bright, the kids are wiggling, and so on.  But after I got home and was editing the photos, I noticed how the boys are holding hands with their fingers interlaced, and it was a done deal!

Oh, and if you guessed that I rewarded them with fortune cookies for a modeling jog well done you guessed right!

Affiliate links are used in this post, because if we ever hope to go to see the Great Wall of China someday, we’ll need some money!  Just kidding, but we do appreciate those of you who click on our affiliate links the help us earn a few pennies at no extra expense to their total.