Näh Connection shop blog tour - and my debut

Hi all, today I'm part of the Näh Connection shop blog tour. My friend Annika is building intercontinental bridges by translating patterns from English to German, and as of now, from German to English. To celebrate that the first set of patterns is now available in her shop, she is hosting a blog tour, with people all over the world (the Näh Connection Ambassadors) introducing fun German patterns. 

 For me, this was the trigger to finally do something that I never dared to do before: sewing for myself....

One of the patterns in Annika's shop is the Bethioua shirt. I've already made several versions of this shirt over the summer (including this raccoon shirt, this tiger shirt, this striped version and this one with penguins), and , and really love the pattern. So I decided that this would be my debut shirt. 

On the fabric market I spotted this fun blue sweat fabric with golden stars. I planned to get only enough for a shirt for me, but got the last 3 meters of the bolt with a nice discount.

With that much fabric on my hands and patterns in two kid sizes already available, what else to do than to sew the Bethioua pattern three times for some serious twinning (or should this be called tripling?)

My middle son explicitly mentioned that he didn't want a matchy shirt, but he did want to be our photographer...

Which resulted in some interesting, but fun crops...

I must say I was feeling pretty self-conscious in front of the camera instead of behind it, but we were having a lot of fun together and my son managed to get some great shots...

Since the pattern is quite wide, and I prefer a more fitted shirt, I cut out one size smaller than instructed based on my measurements (38 instead of 40), I took in another cm at the sides, and now it's just right. I tried hemming the shirt, but wasn't satisfied with the result, so added a band instead. Much better...

My daughter's got a copy of my shirt, with stars all over. 

For my son, I decided to spice it up a bit. I added yellow cuffs and used some solid blue fabric for the back, to emphasize the back yoke.

Since my kids are tall and slender, I used the free Bethioua mini pattern for my son, but lengthened it significantly (about 10 cm). Fits nicely with some room to grow.

Now, I hope to have convinced you to take a look at Annika's shop to see which other patterns she has in stock. Be quick, because right now you get a nice discount if you buy more than one pattern:

Buy 1, save 10 % with code “buy1save10naehconnection”
Buy 2, save 20% with code “buy2save20naehconnection”
Buy 3 or more, save 30% with code “buy3ormoresave30naehconnection“

 or buy all and save 50% (separate product for the pattern bundle)