Last fall, I really wanted to make the boys special Chanukkah outfits. Since I wasn't able to find anything in stores, I decided to order some fun Chanukkah fabric and make pants and appliqued sweatshirts myself. I found an awesome fleece pants pattern that has printable patterns and a video. Watching the pants video, I realized that this could be an easier project than I thought. I was a little afraid to cut into my expensive Chanukkah cotton that I ordered from Spoonflower. So why not make a test pair of pants out of fleece (as this is designed)?
I printed the pattern out myself. I first printed it and then wasn't sure how the sizing should work. UHOH! So I redid it making sure to select DO NOT FIT TO THE PAGE as I printed. I felt like I can have more confidence that the pattern wasn't scaled.
I laid a pair of 12 month carters pants on the pattern, and there is PLENTY of length in the 12 month size. The 9 month might actually be big enough! I'd rather have the pants be way too big so I'm going to stick with the 12 month size for my test and reduce if necessary.
I compared the 12 month pattern piece to rowdy and it seemed HUGE. We'll see if it will fit in the end. This was part o the whole point of doing a practice pair of pants.
Pants question. I know that I need to cut two legs, but do I cut two mirror images (i.e. I can fold the fabric in half and cut two at a time) or do I need to have two identical pieces. Intuition says that I would want mirror images so then the backs sew together and the fronts sew together. Looking at the written instructions I realized that I was supposed to cut on the fold. Phew! I didn't worry about matching up the pattern when folding the fleece.
These are practice pants after all. (Maybe it would have made more sense to try in cotton fabric first, but since this was written for fleece and I had a bunch of extra sitting around after making Rowdy's fleece blanket this made sense to me at the time. )
These pants sewed up so fast. Within minutes I had pants! I'm not sure what I was so worried about. I tried them on Ryder and although big, they weren't ridiculous I measured the elastic around his 11 mo waist and cut a piece that is 18 inches long.
If I overlap the elastic 1 inch this should stretch to hold the pants up. I followed the instructions to create a casing for the waistband. I slipped the elastic through the casing and stitched it closed.
I turned the bottom hems inside out to stitch them with a zigzag stitch. I turned the pants inside out to sew since I wanted the right side of the stitches to show on the outside, but the pants leg was too narrow for my machine. While I was thinking of it I reinforced the crotch. The pants are a bit large, both in length and in the waist.
The instructions for this pattern are fantastic. This is the first full garment I've ever sewn! Well, the first I've sewn for a human versus a stuffed animal. I'm really thrilled with the design and the simplicity of the pattern. I feel like I could easily whip up more fun fleece pants for kids, and maybe even adults! Certainly I will be able to make pants for costumes as needed in the future.
The pants are a little large for Rowdy, but it was better that the pants be too big than too small, right? Now I should be ready to attempt the Chanukkah fabric. I sure hoped that would work out!
Started and Completed 12/17/16
