Black Terry Lined Denim Pants

This fabric was another of those impulse buys.  I found this on a remnant table - It's a black denim on one side and on the back is a white terry type fabric.  This gives a speckly look to the front of the fabric.  It has some stretch to it - Maybe 20% but other than that I can't tell you much about it.

The outside feels just like a denim, the inside is just slightly fluffy (though  not as warm as I had hoped)

I only had 1.5 yards of it and it was quite narrow so I really struggled to get a pair of pants out of it.  But I really wanted those pants so I did what I had to to make it work  In this case I cut my pattern pieces at the knees.

and then one of my back pieces a second time below the knee....I'm calling it a design feature.

I thought about putting zippers in around the knee but in the end decided that these pants were not going to warrant that much detail so each seam is just serged and then top stitched down using plain back thread to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

The pattern I used for these is a new one that I'm working on - taking the best details from all my other jeans patterns and putting them all together.  The pattern was pretty good right off the bat with one exception - as per usual the under butt region.  However by taking out the back seam and pinning it in place and taking a dart where needed right under the butt I actually ended up with a pattern that I'm quite happy with.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough fabric to recut the center back piece after updating my pattern so I made the most of it and just sewed the dart - again it's a design feature don't you know!

The only thing I'm not happy with it that all the sewing and ripping out left a lot of little loops pushing through to the good side of the fabric that I can't do anything about - Oh well.  Thankfully after a couple of washes its going away a bit, but I still have a few white flecks showing through along the seam lines.

I had planned to make these proper fly front pants but with all the little issues I decided to just finish them off simple and make them a cozy everyday sort of pant.  So I cut off the fly and sewed up the front seam.   Since the fabric had plenty of stretch to get the jeans on and off I just added a waistband made out of black ribbed jersey threaded with 1.5"wide elastic.  Comfortable. Easy.

I added front slash pockets - using an old business shirt of my husbands as the pocket bags.  I actually joined the two pocket bags in the center to make one big kangaroo type pocket which I quite like.

I didn't have enough fabric to back patch pockets so the back is just plain.

The bottom hem is simply double turned and stitched.  Now to hope that this fabric doesn't shrink any more in the wash which is what seems to happen to all my pants.

I quite like these pants.  They feel comfortable, fit nicely and are just a simple pair of pants for everyday wear.  And now I have a pattern that I can make more pants out of - Hopefully.

Pattern Review Sewing Bee - T-Shirt inspired by Childhood

It's that time of year again.  It's the Annual Pattern Review Sewing Bee. 

This is my 4th year competing.  I love doing these sorts of contest as it makes me stretch myself.  I often make the same basic patterns over and over and it's nice to have a reason to try something new and different.

This year, the round 1 requirement was to Sew a T-Shirt Inspired by Childhood.

I've cut and paste most of my post here for those who aren't on Pattern Review.


Inspiration

When I hear childhood and T-shirt in the same sentence my mind immediately goes back to when my kids were around 4 and 6 years old. I made them what I think of today as classic kids T-shirts. They were raglan shirts with the main body in one bright colour, sleeves in a second bright colour and collar and bands in a third colour. 

I had so much fun going back through old photos trying to find photos of some of these shirts.  They were so little!

Those T-shirts were some of the favourite things I made for the kids and they got worn as long as possible, being converted from short sleeve shirts to long sleeve shirts when the weather turned cold so that we could get more wear out of them. I have fantastic memories of the outings we used to have in these shirts - to the zoo, the carnival, even just to the park - and they were great since, as they were so bright and distinctive I could spot them easily.

My kids are now a bit older, both in their tweens and these days T-shirts are all about their latest obsession. Gone are the bright primary colours, now it's all about a plain background and a logo. For my son it's T-Shirts with logos of his favourite video games or You Tubers, for my daughter its all about anime and Sonic logos. In the lead up to this Christmas, they both spent hours poring over internet pages of T-shirts with funny slogans trying to find that perfect T-Shirt to give to the other as a gift.  This was the one of the chosen ones.

And so I decided that my T-shirt would be inspired by the different stages of childhood, From young kids on outings at the zoo I've taken the raglan sleeve shirt in primary colours with bands around the arms like we got when we extended them out to full length T-Shirts. And from my older tweens I've taken the idea of a funny meme added to the front of the shirt, but in this case it's based on my obsession - Sewing!

I did some research into different sayings I could use and in the end decided on "If I'm holding a seam ripper, Now is NOT a good time". I chose this as my kids have always had a habit of choosing that one moment when I'm frustrated with my sewing to decide that they need something now! I also wanted to add a visual of a seam ripper opening up a seam.

Pattern Description:

To make my T-Shirt I used my old faithful self drafted raglan T-Shirt pattern. 

The side seams on this shirt have been angled forward and wrap from the back of the arm hole around to the front. 

The shirt is fitted through the bust and in the back but drapes nicely over my stomach.

I've used some basic colour blocking based on my inspiration, with the body in blue and the sleeves in red. Two blue stripes were added to the sleeve around the elbow as per my inspiration.

The neckline is finished with a V black ribbed neck band. The arms and body are also finished with black ribbed cuffs.

Fabric Used:

For this project I've used two fabrics. The blue and red fabrics are different colourways of the same fabric. It's a jersey knit fabric almost like a lightweight sweater knit where the knit side has a fleecy brushed finish. Whilst I don't know what fibers this fabric is made from I believe, based on the drape and feel and a quick burn test, that it's a rayon/poly blend. For this project I've used the fleecy brushed side as the inside of the shirt as I figured it'd be more comfortable.

The neckband, cuffs and bottom band are made from a black cotton rib knit fabric from stash.

Design Details:

The embellishment on the front of the shirt was the most important thing for my inspiration. For the lettering I printed the words at the size I wanted and in the font I wanted

and used yellow tracing paper to transfer the design to the un-sewn front pattern piece. I then used black cotton (and some Red) to embroider the words. 

I used some stretch knit interfacing on the back of the fabric to stabilise the fabric before embroidering. 

For the image I cut a piece of red fabric to the size and shape of the cut out I wanted plus 1/4"seam allowances. I then cut a hole in the fabric where I wanted my insert and hand stitched the red insert into the blue backing fabric. 

I used black cotton to "sew" the cutout closed. Then I had to add the seam ripper. I back stitched around the outline that I wanted then used a thick cotton to fill in the handle, and silver metallic thread for the shaft. A french knot in red was used at the tip of the lower prong.

I'm really proud of the way this turned out. It's probably not the neatest/best embroidery in the world but I'm proud of my attempt.

When I had finished my design looked great from the front, but the back was a mess. In order to hide this I cut a second piece of the front pattern and layered in right side to wrong side behind the first and basted them together and treated it as one piece for the rest of the time.

When I tried on my shirt I realised that I had cut my front neckline too low. After trying a number if other alternatives I settled on adding a blue V into the neck to raise the neckline by about 2 inches.

Sewing Details:

All seams were basted together with a long stitch on my sewing machine and then overlocked/serged.

The neckband, cuffs and bottom band were all sewed/serged to the body in a single layer, then turned back on itself, the edge turned under and then hand stitched in place for a really neat finish both inside and out.

The neck band is interfaced on the right side with stretchy knit interfacing.
As I was working with only scraps of the red fabric I had to piece my sleeves together at the elbow. I then used the blue bands to conceal this seam by butting the band against the ridge of the seam.

The bands were interfaced and the edges pressed under then the band was top stitched in place before the sleeve was sewn up.

Conclusion:

I adore this T-Shirt and know that I will get a lot of wear out of it. It is comfortable and warm thanks to the fabric, the colour blocking makes it bright and cheerful and I'm really proud of the embroidery work on my slogan. Overall a very successful make.

Knitting - Socks and Mittens

When I was in Australia mid last year I stopped into the local spotlight to see what they had.  I wasn't too impressed with their fabric - there was some nice stuff but it was more expensive than I usually pay and nothing was standout enough to pay the extra price....but I did find a pretty ball of sock yarn.  It's not really anything special it's a  Moda Vera Not Just Socks 50% wool, 25% bamboo 25% Polyamide (Nylon).  But its a  great Colour "Bright Multi Mix.

Of course I wanted to make a pair of socks out it.  I basically made up the pattern as I went along.  Working toe up trying it on as I went to get the sizing right. 

The toe is stockinette, there is  1x1 ribbing on the bottom of the sock to mold around the arch of the foot, then a gusset, heal turn. 

The heel is my standard k2 p2, sl2,k2, picking up stiches as you go along so there is no sewing or picking up stitches along the length of the heel. 

It's then knit in K2P2 ribbing for about 12cm.

A nice simple pair of socks.

And when I was finished I still had about 1/2 ball of yarn left over.

So I decided to make a pair of mittens out of it. 

Again the pattern for these was made up as I went along. about 5cm of 1x1 ribbing, another 4 rows of stockinette then increases for the thumb. Once I split the stitches for the thumb out I knitted a few more rows and then added in a few short rows to account for the fact that my pinky is lower set than my index finger.  I think I added a few too many short rows but that better than not enough.

 I then switched to 2x2 rib and knit for another 4.5 cm before casting off.

 I finished off the thumb and then went back, cast on the same number of stitches as across the bottom of my hand and then picked up stitches across the back and started knitting a mitten top to go over the top. 

The underside was in 2x2 rib and the back in stockinette.  A few decreases at the top and then a three needle cast off.

I really love these mittens.  I can slip off the top and have my fingers free to answer/play on the phone, or even slip the whole thing back onto my wrist is I need my hands free without having to take off - and usually lose - the mittens.