Sew in Tune: Li’l Lumineer (with fedora and suspenders tutorial)

Hooray, Sew in Tune kicks off today, and I get to start with a suspenders tutorial, a fedora tutorial and free pattern!

If it wasn’t obvious from the title of the post, I chose to do Ho Hey by the Lumineers for my song. If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard this song, the video is here:

It’s downright catchy, isn’t it? Also Bean loves to sing this song (though we discovered that we were singing the wrong lyrics for quite a while – we thought they were saying “You belong with me in my sweet home” not “You belong with me you’re my sweetheart.” This mistake has been remedied as Bean reminds me every time the song comes on, “Sweetheart, mommy!”)

As you can see from the video, and if you google any other pictures of the band, you’ll notice that they sport a vintage hipster style for which a fedora is essential. Also that Jeremiah Fraites really loves his suspenders. So that is what I wanted to re-create for Bean.

I started with the pants – these are Clean Slate Pants sewn without the fly and made from the thrifted tuxedo pants Hubby wore for this photo shoot.  It’s not like he was going to wear them again, and now that they’ve been washed twice and gone in the ocean, I’m not worried about the wool being itchy or shrinking on Bean. I did slim the legs down slightly for this look , taking about 1/2″ off each side of the front and back leg pieces at the hem and tapering that up to the original pattern line. I ran out of fabric for the waistband, so that was cut from some black broadcloth I had on hand.

The T-shirt is easy – plain white interlock for the shirt and the neckband, sewn in literally 20 minutes following this tutorial and using this pattern.

The suspenders were also really easy – two sets of fashion clips, one package of the colored knit elastic that Joann’s carries now, and 20 minutes as well. The suspenders tutorial can be summed up in four pictures.

1. Buy the materials. Fashion fit clips available here (affiliate link). 

2. Cut the elastic off the fashion clips.

3. Sew new elastic cut to length (I used about 19 inches per strap for my size 3 son) through the clips, folding the raw edge under and backstitching.

4. Clip suspenders in place, pin together where they cross in the back, then sew the crossed part together in a diamond pattern.

As for the fedora, that’s what makes the outfit in my opinion. It was also the hardest part for me to figure out.

But lucky you – through my trial and error you can get a tutorial and a free pattern! Keep reading for the fedora tutorial.

Finally, for the photos I originally thought about using falling confetti like in the end of the video. I even let the boys cut up tissue paper to use. But then Hubby wanted to go to lunch at a restaurant that I knew would be the perfect backdrop for the photos – old and vintage-y decor. So after we ordered our food, Bean and I wandered around the restaurant shooting these and gathering indulgent smiles from all the other diners.

So get to the fedora tutorial already, right? Well, this post got so long I decided the fedora needed its own post.

SO CLICK HERE TO GET TO THE FEDORA TUTORIAL

And don’t forget to come back tomorrow – Stacey of Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy will be sharing something Korean inspired (hint, hint).