Thursday, December 1, 2011

One of those days...

Do you ever have one of those sewing days where nothing goes right and your best friend is your seam ripper? I had that times 2. All I wanted was a pair of Christmas pajama pants for myself and a friend.

I picked out some flannel Dr. Seuss Grinch Christmas fabric for our pants. I was at my Mom's for Thanksgiving and we couldn't find the pattern we always use. So we went with another that she had, which just had two pattern pieces (it's a "learn to sew" pattern-- how hard can it be?).

 We were thinking clearly enough to realize that one piece of fabric was a directional print, so we got that right. However, (mistake #1) we didn't flip the pattern when cutting out the second piece, which left us with two of the exact same cuts. So. had we sewn them together, one leg would be inside out. So I bought more fabric (what was all that was left on the bolt). The other pair wasn't a directional, so those were fine (for now).

We started sewing those together and they were huge! They would have easily fit my husband. Not so much me. I tried to just trim them down a little by taking a bigger seam, but since it was just the inseam, it didn't work well.  So we decided that the only thing to do would be to rip them all the way out and cut them down to the next patten size. We measured and apparently kept comparing measurements to the crotch seam instead of the hip area (mistake #2). So we cut them down two smaller sizes AND took an inch off of the middle. Then we trimmed the other pair down exactly like that (mistake #3). When we sewed my pair up, you guessed it... WAY too small. Which also meant the other pair would be too.

To avert a disaster, and save me from buying another 3 yards of fabric, we cut the pants down the sides, added a strip of fabric, matched up the pattern and sewed an extension on. The pieces we added on were also not the same size. I'm cheap creative. What can I say?

                                                                                                   There's the seam we added.
Yes, they fit a little wonky, but they're pajama pants.... don't judge. The other pair we didn't really try to save. I brought home the extra big leg we initially cut and went to another store and bought enough for another leg. I'll only cut it down a little this time. We are dubbing this the Great Pajama Pant Debacle of 2011.

Here is the finished green ones:

I will add pictures of the others when they are done. It's going more smoothly, so far.

No comments:

Post a Comment