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. 🙂