Sleeveless top and baggy pants

Men først, nokre tanktar… I går pakka eg alle stoffa mine ned for flytting. Eg tør ikkje seie kor mange flyttekasser det bli, det er litt for pinleg… Marknaden for flotte klesstoff har jo berre blomstra dei siste nokså få åra, og så har også stofflageret til mang ein hobbysyar også. “Åaa, så stilig eit stoff, berre mååå ha det!” Nokon som kjenner seg att? ;-) Mange spør om det lønner seg å sy sine eigne klede. Eg brukar å svare at det nok lønner seg om ein berre ser på materialkostnadene til kvart enkelt plagg. Men for kvart plagg eg syr, har eg stoff til fem plagg på lager (anar ikkje kor mange plagg, eigentleg). Og utstyret kostar. Og alt tilbehøret som kjøpast inn. Så nei, det lønner seg ikkje. Men så handlar deg heller ikkje om å spare pengar, sjølv om dét å spare pengar ikkje er å forakte. Men det handlar om å lage noko, skape noko, og å bli i godt humør av det. Og det er ein måte å slappe av på i ein travel kvardag. Av og til tenkjer eg at eg er heldig som har ein rekreasjons-måte som er nyttig for noko. I tillegg til at barna mine går i heimelaga klede, vil dei også at eg syr klede til bursdagspresang når dei skal i bursdagsselskap. Det er noko som eg som mor aldri kan ta for gitt, og eg er takksam for at dei set pris på det som er heimelaga. Om du også har saum som hobby, kva set du pris på ved hobbyen?

But first, some thoughts… Yesterday I packed all my fabrics into boxes. I won’t tell how many IKEA boxes in total, it is a little bit too embarrassing, I think… In only a few years, the apparel fabric market  in Scandinavia har flourished, and so has the fabric stock of many a home seamstress too. Anybody else having it that way? “I just looove that fabric, got to have a piece of it”… People often ask me if it pays off to sew your own clothes. I use to reply that if you calculate only the stuff used in a single garment, it often pays off (assumed no salary for sewing clothes to yourself). But; for every garment made, I have fabrics in storage for perhaps five (??) garments. The machines cost. Lots of notions/tilbehør. So no; it doesn’t pay off. But it was never about saving money, even though saving money is nice. It’s about making something and be happy about it. Creation and recreation. Sometimes I feel fortunate that my way of recreation happens to be useful. Not only do my children wear home-made clothes themselves, but they also wants to bring home-made clothes for presents when going to birthday parties. A mother can never take that for granted, and it makes me grateful that they appreciate what’s home-made. If you sew, what do you appreciate about your hobby?

My four-year-old needs summer clothes, and this set was made for her on my “birthday in the sewingroom” 1,5 week ago. Quick and easy garments.

Baggy pants pattern:

I have written about the pattern for the baggy pants earlier in this post. The pattern is a modification of a trouserpattern with rib around the ancles (type joggebukse). With intructions from Armstrong’s book, I lowered the crotch/skrittet about 1”/2,5 cm (I think maybe this is a little bit too much). Then I cut the pattern along an imaginary/tenkt sideseam and spread the patternpieces 2”/5 cm before tracing around it to make one single pattern-piece without sideseam.

But after drawing the pattern and tried it out, I found that the pants were too wide on the top, below the waistband/nedanfor livet. So I tried to stitch a sideseam that removed the 2”/5cm at the top, then running stitching a sideseam starting where the original (imaginary) sideseam, going in a slightly oblique/skrå direction downwards (follow the link above for illustration), and that works very well. As it is quicker to cut one large piece than two small, I still cut the pants using the first, too wide baggy pattern, and then modifying it with a sideseam.

Rib at ancles: The baggy pant legs are wider than the rib is able to stretch. I solved this by stretching to the maximum and making some additional folds with my fingers as I sewed (I use the overlocker).

The top:

The edges on the top are made of the single jersey, same as I used in the pants. I cut a 4 cm wide band and pressed wrong side to wrong side lenghtwise. After stitching one shoulderseam, I stitched it right sides facing to the top’s neckline, pulling from almost nothing to as much as I could, depending on the curves (I pulled most in the little curves right behind the shoulderseams). The topstitch using the Coverpro stabilizes the neckline. But since I stretched the fabric very much when stitching it, I guess it is best used on garments with a quite wide neckline (so you don’t need to stretch it very much to get it over your head). I forgot to topstitch the arm openings…

The little detail with the ribbon and heart button is an idea to fell into my mind, I’m not sure how it will work in the washing machine. The ribbon is only attached with the buttin, maybe I’ll have to place a few stitches there too?

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What a long post, *phew*, soon time to stop ;-)

Fabrics and notions: Pants: Jersey from Textart.no, rib from Stoff og Stil. Top: Made from the same rib (stretch jersey) from Stoff og Stil, edges from the jersey from Textart. Ribbon from Farbenmix.de. Heart button from KAM.