Artist Dorothy Tully's blog of creative projects and adventures in drawing, gardening, cooking, kids, life, and whatever else! Come with me on the creative path!
Here we have a simple raglan top I made for E. The print shows dinosaurs and unicorns in space, and really, what could be better than that? She loves it!
Otherwise, I've been busy hosting Thanksgiving, making and eating pies, painting some of my kitchen cupboards blue, reading a ton, and working on my next book! More on this next time!
I made a long-overdue top for C., which she had picked out the fabrics for a while ago. Actually, she was going to sew it herself, but then lost interest. It's OK, I don't mind making it! ^_^
Then my jeans ripped (that's gardening for you . . . and keeping jeans for years and years and years, I mean I guess they do wear out someday . . .) so I decided to turn them into a pair of jeans for C!
First, the top. A straightforward sew from a pattern (Moto Maxx from Love Notions), although I did have to lengthen the cuffs because that cat fabric on the sleeves was a bit too short. And I fussy-cut the shoulders to feature the characters she wanted. :) I took a spare owl from the forest friends fabric and appliqued it on the front. Claire calls it the Cosmic Owl, which I love!
Then the pants! I cut my jeans up and saved the legs and back pockets. I took a pair of C's pants that fit her well (with room to grow) and laid it out to trace onto each leg of the jeans. You shove one leg into the other, with the inside out, and this gives you a "pattern piece" shape to trace. Really I winged it because the "tube" of the jeans leg was already sewn. Anyway, I erred on too big and cut my two legs.
I pinned the pockets on the front, at a nice pockety angle I thought she could easily get her hand in without spilling the contents. When I sewed these on I DID bend my needle in a totally crazy laughable way, so the lesson is, go slow on jeans material, AND don't try to get the presser foot over too much bulk, even if you're using a 100/16 needle!
Anyway, then I sewed up the rise by turning one leg right side out, and again, putting it inside the other, all lined up, right-sides-together. Typically I HATE using this method for pants, but it's unavoidable when the legs are already sewn up!! (My usual procedure is to do the rise ONLY, reinforce/top stitch, then do the legs from one ankle all the way up and over to the other. Even if a pattern says to do the leg-in-leg shove [not the technical term], I do my way instead. Because sometimes following directions doesn't matter and you can do whatever you want!)
Once I had most-of-a-pair-of-pants, I trimmed the top to some semblance of regular pants (more on this later). Then I needed a waistband!
With C's waist measurement, I fit my band to the fabric I had, which turned out to be about 28" by 8". I wanted a nice fat yoga waistband she could fold down if needed. I wanted it to be roomy, because when all the fabric is folded over, and then (maybe) folded again, it does get a little smaller/tighter.
Then I worked some sewing magic and had a waistband! (no magic, just boring to describe if you know how to make a waistband. I could be on the Great British Sewing Show technical challenge if the instructions said, "make a knit waistband". I got that, EASY!! Not that that show exists, but I'd watch it if it did.)
I only basted the waistband on in case I needed to alter things after she tried it on. And I DID need to! The pants were really baggy because I had left so much room in the rise. That's OK! I eyeballed what I needed to do, and took them back to the machine. I cut off about 2" height all around the top, and reattached the waistband permanently.
Pro tip: knit waistbands like these NEED TO BE TOPSTITCHED/REINFORCED (stitching the hem down to the pants), or else the seam WILL get all holey and start falling apart. At least, my kids somehow move around so this always happens. But if you topstitch the seam down, your life will be trouble-free. (Maybe not in every respect, but your pants won't fall apart.)
She tried them on again and they were STILL very roomy, so I accordion-folded over a section of the waistband to make it tighter, and zigzag-stitched it in a baste-y way I can easily take out again later. Now they fit her fine and she even wore them to karate, no problem. When the band gets too tight, I can take out the stitching for bonus room!
I think she'll wear these pants for quite a while! She looks so cute in them, because to me, she looks like me. She's wearing my pants! :) She's wearing them in the top photo with the new shirt, too!