KCW Day 5: More stripey boy pjs

I made another set of summer pjs for my 2-year-old using stash scraps.  The top is made of the last of my dreamy Land of Oh striped interlock.  Even my machine likes it - see that hem?



Don't mind the loose thread.

The top is another super-lengthened size 12-18 month Oliver+S Field Trip Raglan.  As the interlock isn't very stretchy I probably should have drafted the next size up.  It should fit for the year though.

For the pants, I used the Oliver+S Playtime Leggings pattern in 3T - for no reason other than that the pattern piece was sitting on my ironing board and it was faster than digging out the Growing Up Sew Liberated Sleeping Johns pattern again.  I just cut off some of the length and came up with these breeches.  The fabric is some very bright yellow cotton/lycra from Girl Charlee awhile back - the color wasn't quite what I thought when I ordered it and so it has languished in the stash several years.

For the waistband I used my new favorite finish - serving the elastic directly to the edge of the fabric, then turning it to the side and topstitching right through the elastic using a three-step zigzag.  It looks so much better than my knit elastic casings, and seems to be holding up a bit better in the wash.  I have read that this approach only works if you use woven elastic or knit elastic - braided elastic apparently is weakened by sewing through it (oops, I used braided elastic in the legs of all my cloth diapers!).

The baby woke up super-cranky from his nap and although he was thrilled to try the pjs on, posing for photos was not high on his priority list.  Check out those teething cheeks.

I think I'm just about out of boyish knits now.  Whenever I am shopping for knits I get seduced by florals so that is mostly what is left in the stash.  I have checked out the usual suspects but I'm having trouble finding anything other than stripes or solids - and while I love those, I feel like I should branch out.  Where do you get your boyish knits?

Not-so-baby pajamas

My baby turns 1 tomorrow (sob), but he outgrew his 12-month clothes, like, five months ago.  He is a big boy.  We are down to two pairs of cotton pajamas that fit, and the frequency of laundry around here is not such that this always works for us.  I've been wanting to try out some of the patterns in my Growing Up Sew Liberated book for awhile - and it's a good thing I started now because they only go up to 5T.

I wasn't a huge fan of this orange Jay McCarroll knit when I first saw it on sale.  For one, the fabric line is called "Germania" and is not, as I had originally thought, an homage to Germany.  It's inspired by germs, folks.  I bought it anyway because it was only $4.50 a yard and I didn't have many (any) boyish knits in my stash.

I only had a yard of it, and after I aggressively washed and dried it six times, that yard became less than 30 inches. (Yes, six times through the washer and dryer. I hate when knits shrink after they are already sewn up, so I often will put them through the wringer before even cutting into them.) I managed to squeeze a 18-24 month envelope tee and 2T sleeping johns out of the yard and I even have a little leftover for appliques later on.  For the trim, I went against good judgment and used some cotton interlock.  Even though the fabrics don't match, or even really coordinate, I really love how they look together.  But of course, the interlock doesn't have as much recovery as you need for a good neck binding.  I figure it's just pajamas, it will be fine.

The pieces sewed up really quickly.  The sleeping johns pattern has just one pattern piece, of which you cut two mirror images.  I added the leg cuffs because I wanted to have some of the trim on the pants too.  They are nice and roomy for a cloth diaper.

I tucked a folded over scrap of knit in the back waistband so that my husband would know which way they go on.  I didn't use ribbon because I wanted it to be really soft.

In this photo you can see that there are tiny bright teal dots sprinkled here and there throughout the print.  I think they would really pop if I had a bright teal knit to use for the trims.

The envelope tee was easy to sew up, too.  I really like the way she has you finish the binding - you zigzag around the seam join for the binding and the main fabric, catching the raw edge in the zigs at the back.  Like a mock coverstitch.  Unfortunately, my machine won't do a regular zigzag on knits anymore - I don't know what the problem is.  I used a 3-step zigzag but it skipped a lot, so the finish isn't that pretty.

I kind of love these pjs.  They are so soft.  I want a pair for me.  I hope that all my pre-shrinking means they won't shrink much more, so that they will last through the fall.  The pants are definitely long enough; he might outgrow the top, though.  Maybe I should order some more of the fabric ...

Sew Liberated skinny cords

Skinny jeans kind of snuck up on me.  I remember seeing them a few years ago for the first time and thinking, "Yuck!" They only looked good on the pin-thin, and even then, what was wrong with a good bootcut?

Well, maybe it's seeing skinny jean after skinny jean - seriously, this trend has been around awhile! - but I finally started to see the appeal.

My first pair of skinny jeans came from Carrefour - the French grocery chain whose Tbilisi store has a sizeable clothing section in addition to housewares, electronics, etc. - basically it's like Kmart.  I was down 20 pounds post baby #3, and in desperate need of pants that didn't have a saggy bottom.  The jeans cost me about $8, so I carried them home in a sack of lightbulbs and dishwashing liquid, feeling fairly sure that I would not really be able to pull them off.

It's possible I look dumb in them, but my friends and husband say they look good.  

And I guess the final step in my skinny jean conversion occurred when I bought Sew Liberated's Simple Skinny Jean pattern. 

 Inspired by maternity jeans, the pattern features a faux fly and a wide elastic waistband. Made up in stretch woven fabrics, it's actually a pretty easy and quick sew.  I made them up in a cheap stretch corduroy I found here at Goodwill (not a thrift store, actually another huge grocery store in Tbilisi!) for about $2/meter. 

I'm in between RTW sizes 10 and 12 at the moment, but with calves thick enough to pose a problem buying off-the-rack skinny jeans.  I sewed a size 12 to leave room for error.  The pants fit well in the calves, but were a tiny bit big in the thigh area, and way too big in the hips.  I had to take them in 2" on either side of the hips, tapering to nothing at the knee.

When I tried on the jeans before attaching the waistband, I found that the back rise was low.  Like, indecent-exposure low.  They didn't clear my not-particularly-curvy rump, and in fact, if I had attached the waistband right then, the waistband wouldn't have cleared my rump.  I can't remember now why I didn't rip the yoke out and draft a new one, but for some reason I decided to just cut a second piece and attach it to the first yoke.  So there are two separate yoke pieces on these pants.  You can see them in this photo.

It worked, and I redrafted the yoke piece so that I can cut just one on my next pair.  I have some purple stretch corduroy for that pair (or maybe it will become a Lisette Traveler dress ... hmm, can't decide!).

One other note: the inseam on these is quite short.  I am 5'8" and I had to add 4" of length to the pants, 2" after the fact in the form of an extra band sewn around the bottom.  Check before you cut!

Even with all these post-construction alterations, the pants didn't take very long to sew up.  The fit out of the envelope was unwearable, but the simplicity of the pattern means that adjustments aren't that complicated.  I did not expect to end up with something wearable out of my first foray into pants, but I did.

There is one more modification I should have made, but didn't: turn the faux front pockets into real pockets. This mama needs someplace to keep tissues and her cellphone!

I will say that, although Sew Liberated has some more cute patterns, my experience with this one has left me hesitant to try any of them.  The pattern instructions are sparse; in order to get more exact directions you have to refer to the video tutorials online.  The tutorial for this pattern is not broken up into easily-navigable chunks; it just comes as one long (maybe 30 minutes, I can't remember) video that you have to fast forward to find what you want.  With an easily constructed pattern like this one, that's not such a big deal, but I think it would be highly irritating in a more complex pattern.  Especially if, like mine, your internet is prone to crapping out on a fairly regular basis.

But I did get a good pair of pants - and more confidence in my ability to fit clothes to myself -  out of the pattern.  And I think that alone is worth the $15.95 I paid.

Are skinny jeans here to stay?  I don't know.  But I think they'll be around long enough for me to make another pair.