I am just LOVING all the free patterns I've gotten to play with lately. Today I'm talking about the Coral + Co Knot Bow Romper.

I have to admit, I really feel like my kids are too old for rompers, but rompers are "in" right now, so I was willing to give it a chance. I opted to make the size 3 for my 3 year old daughter. She fit perfectly within the size chart.

This pattern has layers, which is a VERY good thing, because tracing out the bow knots without it would make your eyes cross. The pattern is very simple and is made up of rectangles with the necessary cut outs for crotch, neck and armholes. Assembly is SUPER fast once you know what you're doing.

I opted to not assemble the facing pieces and just use the front and back bodice pieces cut about 1/2 way up the bodice for the facing. This saved me a few minutes time and also helped make sure my bow knots would be a bit more even since it was hard to get a consistent shape from the pattern pieces (my cutting, not the pattern).

Now for the not so good parts. :/ For the record, I have contacted Coral + Co and encouraged them to reach out to Janet of 7 Pine Design so that she could have a technical designer look at her pattern. I know that with a little technical know how it could be a great free pattern.

When I pieced the crotch together there were several errors that I couldn't ignore.
#1- The crotch curve comes to a sharp v-point at the bottom when it should be a nice smooth U.
#2- The inseam does not match up at the seam allowance.
#3- The outseam does not match up at the seam allowance.
#4- The back crotch seam is not trued and ends in a very sharp triangle point at the waist seam.
#5- The  crotch curve is VERY shallow.

As much as I wanted to follow the pattern exactly as drafted, I just couldn't. With my limited drafting knowledge, I did my best to true up all the edges, match up inseams and outseams and scoop out the crotch curve to be more u-shaped. A good designer would do a much better job than me, but for my purposes, I think I did ok.

I suspect that if you sewed the pattern exactly as drafted your child would be constantly picking at the crotch of the shorts. I wasn't willing to sacrifice fabric to find out. If you feel comfortable either drafting your own crotch curve OR copying one from another pattern, you can still have good success with this pattern.