Fancy School Pants

So my children have hit that time in their life when they're likely to grow an inch in a month or two, then not grow for for months, then SPROING! Up they go again. This means that, not only are they eating me out of house and home, all their pants are too short.  I've been wanting to make jeans for a while but still feel intimidated, mostly because of the thickness of denim and top stitching. I decided I would start with something a bit easier, such as a pair of side zipped pants with cuffs. What I didn't do is re-measure Felicity because I thought 6 weeks couldn't be THAT much of a difference. I was wrong.

The pattern in question is an OOP Simplicity 4518 (side note, these are easy to find second hand)

Just about everything in this envelope has Felicity's name on it. She really like the pants, which I made from some remnant cotton/rayon blend suiting. Problem was I didn't give myself extra seam allowance for the hips and waist, because she's inherited my build. We vikings have ample muscle mass and lots of booty. I ended up having to take the center front and center back seems how and was unable to flat fell the crotch seam. This turned out to be its demise.

But let me go back a bit first. I should probably add that I somehow forgot to sew when making these. They were doomed to begin with. WORST waistband and zipper insertion I've ever done. It took me no less than three tries, and due to needing to take out the seams I had to do some weird darning stitches  to add to the SA. It looked horrible.

Bad zipper, no cookie.

See, it sucks. But I had to finish these things out of sheer stubbornness.

Fancy School Pants  (and my Green December UFO)

I also finished at the beginning of my bout of the flu, which for means a week of sick and two days of fibromyalgia flare up. Poop. BUT, she loved them and put them on before going over to her Grandmother's for a few days. I told her not to get them dirty. Not that that would do much good, because this is how they came back to me.

Ripped seat and Georgia red clay stains

Yup. Not only not enough booty room, but she was playing outdoors in the mud with her cousins. And if you didn't know, we don't have dirt, we have clay. RED CLAY. That shit doesn't come out of anything. Because what you see is basically no seam allowance left, I had to throw these in file thirteen. Fudge.

However, the punchline to all this is we now have a new thing in my house. Because what I said was "What did I tell you about playing outside in your fancy school pants in the first place!!". This made both my children start doing a sing song and a dance.

FANCY SCHOOOL PANTS, FANCY SCHOOL PANTS!! *kermit flail with butt wiggle*

*sighs*

She now wants a pair out of stretch satin leopard print.

Rules, Sew-a-Longs, and Pledges

Hello all you lovely people in the Sewcialist Land, I've had this thing on my mind lately. Its a thing about sew-a-longs, themes, and pledges that have proliferated of late. I mean, I'm totally happy that they do, and I'm fully aware that I'm an enabler and instigator.But for myself personally I feel like I can't keep up with the pace of sew-a-longs, et al. I'm totally a rules breaker and usually a non-conformist. Which is a polite way of saying I'm contrary. Sorry, not contrite at all.

To be honest, I love making plans but rarely follow them. Its kind of like that saying "Life is what happens while your busy making other plans", except I do it to myself.

SQUIRREL!

What was I saying? Oh right, inability to keep up with the pace. You know, I figure I'm probably not the only person that feels that way, and I thought I would share. Because seriously, don't let yourself be distracted. Or go along with things as you like, its all good.

And something else, too. I discovered I sew the way I think. To use crankysysadmin terminology, I've got a quad core brain and its multi-threading processes (projects) all the time. I like to cut a lot of things out at once, then sew them up as I like. I'm not very "one project at a time". Sometimes a process gets stuck and I have to reboot, or sometimes the file gets corrupted and we got to scrap it and re-install. And sometimes I just need to power down and chill out.

Can you believe its taking me over a week to write this much? I've been overcome with a great amount of lethargy and I'm going to blame it on the weather. In the 22 years of living in Atlanta I have NEVER experienced such a cold, wet, and miserable winter. Ok, its not totally miserable, there was some beautiful moments. But the problem with climate change is we don't know what to expect anymore, ya know, other than volatility. But any way, its been a major contributor to my lethargy. There's promise of high 60's low 70's next week, and that's good.

Also I can finally share another bit of great news because its official. We are going on an 8 day Caribbean cruise with our dear friend Dreama and her family, which includes me being her Matron of Honor. I have to make something to wear for that and will do double duty as a dress for the formal dinners. Along with some sun dresses and other cruising attire. This will be happening in May and the kids are beside themselves with anticipation.

And last but not least, February is BLUE! I will say I love the color themed months the best because it leaves style and pattern up to the person.