#pants sewing

[san-sews-seams]

If you want to try sewing pants in a way that's casual, but still a step up from pajama pants, I CANNOT recommend the Ora Lin Pirate Pants pattern highly enough. (I say, in the midst of sewing my 5th, 6th, and 7th pairs.)

[anielskaaniela]

Tutorial

[samarrakhaja]

Must. Make. More.

I know I told you about a fairly recent obsession with making pants for my boys after I finally dove in and tackled making my first pair (following a paper pattern) a few months ago. 

Once that first pair was done, I was on a roll. I had tackled the elastic waisted front and thought I should attempt the flat front style next. 

The Bub demanded a pair be made out of some rainbow remnants he found in my stash. I love them; they're totally him. They also keep reminding me of Mork & Mindy (maybe I need to get some suspenders for the boy) and rental clowns, who I'm not a big fan of, so I much prefer my son wear them.

This pair was better although I failed to line the stripes up nicely on the outer seams and that bugs when I look at them. Granted, I had *just* the right amount of fabric to make pants for him, no more, no less, so I'll forgive myself a little for not nailing the streamlined details.

Learning. I'm learning.

So I upped the ante and made another pair of flat fronts, this time using a cherished tomato wide whale corduroy I had. 

I even spent extra time binding all the seams with more of that vintage tape I had gotten last summer at a local yard sale. I knew if I was going to make pants out of this juicy fabric that I wasn't going to have ugly fraying bits inside.

Loves 'em! The Bub loves 'em! 

They go awesomely well with his favorite color orange color and some swanky new red desert boots a friend brought back from Spain. Not to mention those bright orange socks.

The boy is stylin'.

I have no complaints about my sewing job on these. I'm thrilled with how they turned out. The only thing that might have been a good touch would have been to line them so he could wear them in colder weather. But, hey that's no biggie.

So now with three pairs of pants under my belt (there's a visual), I decided it was about time to a) make some pants out of my fabric, and b) make a matching pair for Mister Baby Pants.

I've stuck with the flat front pants as they look a lot sleeker and give a nicer fit. I'm also a big fan of the wider leg, which makes them really hang nicely.

And I matched up the pattern on the seams properly this time. Yessss.

Mister Baby Pants loves them too. He actually requests to wear them more times than not, barely giving me a chance to launder them.

(This picture just makes me laugh.)

And one more time, with shoes, lollipops and a t-shirt change.

They love them, I love them and I'll be making more. Especially after being inspired by this interview and this review of Elizabeth L. Cline's Overdressed. 

Have you read Overdressed? I haven't yet, but am definitely in line with the philosophy that making your own clothing gives you a better appreciation for true quality and I hate the wasteful marketing manipulation that trends and poor quality create.

Ignore stinky short shelf life trends! Say NO to "fast fashion"!

Add to that, my excitement over Celebrate the Boy, and I'm on a path to make, make, make more of our own fun clothing. 

Good stuff!

[samarrakhaja]

Sew Behind: Pants Edition

I mentioned in my last post that I was making some pants. Yup, this is my latest fascination-obsession in the midst of everything else I've got going on. I know, I know. For all you professional sewing folk out there, this is really far from an interesting revelation, but in my world, it's pretty key at the moment.

You see, I've only ever made one garment before in my entire life, if you don't count the coats, hats and matching boots that I fashioned for our two family cats when I was 9. They were not as thrilled with their outfits as I was, oddly enough.

Anyway, my only previous clothing creation was a pair of Thai fisherman pants I made from some vintage navy gingham dress fabric for The Bub when he was a mere 9-months old (and hello, where did the time fly?).

He'd been given some similar fisherman pants already and I simply drafted my new pair off the existing ones. I think they are one of the BEST things to dress a growing baby in as they accommodate size changes fashionably and cover fat diapers equally as gracefully.

Here's an archive photo of The Bub, showing his baby Thai fisherman (sassy) pants in action.

Aside from these pants, I've managed to steer clear from tackling anything more complex because I tend to freeze up when I see flat pattern pieces and long written directions without any visuals on how to assemble everything.

So when I found one of the many brilliant tutorials by Dana over at Dana Made It, I decided  I was determined to make a pair of elastic-waisted pants for my quickly beanpoling 4-year old Bub.

On top of that, I was also going to commit to actually making a preliminary stunt pair out of muslin for practice/fit purposes (since I was going to have to adjust and enlarge Dana's pattern, which is drafted for a 2-3 year old). This is something I never do. I'm typically a renegade wildebeest who goes straight for the gold with my 'for real' fabric first time out of the gate. Yes, potentially foolhardy. If I flop, I waste my precious fabric and lament it for days. But if I succeed, oh well then I walk around proudly for at least an hour or two gloating about my personal sewing victory. I'm wild and crazy like that.

After a successful muslin pair, here's what the final pair look like. Since The Bub is a tall tall boy and destined to be even taller, I added extra length and folded it up into the cuffs so I could let it down as needed.

Oh, what? Oooooh, riiiiight. I almost forgot. Here's where I tell you about a couple of minor flubs. Because, good people of the universe, an SK sewing project is NOT complete without me messing something up and having to fix it. It's my calling card.

My errors were laughable. Ready? First, I mislabeled the front and back pieces of the pants and promptly sewed knee patches to the back of the pants. They looked beautiful. But backwards. Er, whoops. I reunited with my stupid seam ripper for the umpteenth time and undid them.

Dumb error number two occurred because of my hurried desire to get the pants done before The Bub came home. Without him to measure them on, I barreled ahead and placed the patches too low on the pants. Comically too low. HAHAHAHA. *Sigh*. But at this point, I was done.

Here's what they look like on my dear Bub, who's method of picture-taking this particular day involved freezing and posing and freezing and posing. They fit him well and are a good base pair for me to fashion additional ones from. I'll ignore the comical knee patches that melted and slid their way down a bit further than anticipated. The fabric is fairly full in the front, so I was happy to find a flat-fronted version of the same pants pattern and I'm in the process of making more pairs for him.

Stay tuned because I'll show you the outcome of those next. I'm clearly hooked and will be making many more pants before my interest fades. Mark my words. :)

[samarrakhaja]

Sew Behind

I'm sorry that I've been remiss in posting recently. Especially with the current build-up to Holiday Season Central, I think I'm very likely to get unsuspectingly swept up into the undertow once again, but I'll try not to. There are lots of things to do and I have a massive list of things I want (um, need?) to create.

Mister Baby Pants is now past the 18-month mark and well into 2-year old behavior which is not affording me too much free time at all. If things go silent for more than five minutes, I hop up from whatever I'm working on, as though my pants had just combusted into flames, and scramble to any of about five possible places he might be up to mischief.

Typically he's fine and doing everything he's supposed to be (like above, where he's sitting across from me playing intently while I undo and resew and undo and resew a pair of pants for The Bub), but recently he's learned to climb right up onto the dining table, and oh boy, what a joy that is!!!

Or I come across something much more magnificent. Yes, I should be highly impressed with his fine motor skills, but all I see is a crime scene. Good reason to implement a "Mittens Must Be Worn Inside at All Times" policy.

It's a tad frustrating to feel like I'm not accomplishing a lot and that I'm being sabotaged left and right, but hey, it comes with the territory. Thus my documenting bits and pieces of it to show you. You know, so you can share my pain.

Stay tuned. I'll soon be posting about those pants I mentioned I made (and undid and made again). Two steps forward, one back. Yay!  ;)