This from that: Kwik Sew 2276 and McCalls 5962

Thanks everyone for your comments on the last post and your helpful hints on swimwear sewing - I'll definitely keep them in mind for the next round of swimsuit sewing. Actually I've already tried out the method of sewing elastic on to fabric with the overlocker and then turning it over and topstitching as suggested by both Angie and Maria - I discovered that to disengage the blades on my overlocker all I have to do is half turn a knob so it's easy peasy to do.  My precious Babylock, I love thee more and more each day!

My sewing lately has been so non productive thanks to Toby being a little clingy and whingy lately, he seems to have a sixth sense and just seem to know the exact moment I step foot into my sewing room because he'll then wake up and scream hysterically until I hold him. I've 90% finished my June Burda project, have started a refashion project and cut out a top, but none of these unfinished projects are blog worthy (yet).  I did get a bit of time last Saturday in my sewing room when my husband took the kids to the zoo, and I managed to finish up two pairs of pants for Toby because he's growing so quickly out of his other clothes.

My mum gave me a pair of lovely teal green corduroy jeans that she used to wear when she was younger - I distinctly remember her wearing these and another pair of cord jeans to my school when she was on canteen duty much to my embarrassment at the time. Of course now I would love to wear them myself, except that I can't fit into them and the small issue that my inner thighs are so flabby that when I wear corduroy jeans the noise of my legs rubbing together when I walk sounds like a black hawk helicopter taking off!

So instead I made Toby a pair of jeans from Kwik Sew 2276, a long OOP pattern that I've used before for jeans for Anna. I deliberately made these a size larger and with a little extra length in the legs so they are a little too big for Toby right now, but I'm sure that in no time they'll fit him perfectly (even if only for a nanosecond).

I reused the waistband and belt loops, and added some elastic across the back to make sure they fit properly, and I'm really pleased at how they turned out.

My husband's clothes are perfect candidates for refashioning since he's a six foot something giant and likes to wear his clothes loose so there's a lot of fabric to work with.  Seriously, check this out:

He seems to have a lot of tshirts from charity golf or cricket days etc that are made from really nice fabrics but are covered in sponsors logos which means he never wears them again after the day, which is such a waste of resource.  Refashioning them is such a better idea than sending them out to a charity shop where it's unlikely anyone else would want to wear them either.  I decided to remake this tshirt that was made of a thick, woven knit in grey and black threads into some baggy pants for Toby to run around in when we're at home - no constraints on his overly ambitious climbing and running around now!  I used McCalls 5962 which ironically I whinged about the sizing previously, but this time the oversized, slouchy look is what I was after:

 

This is the waistband I sewed the elastic on with my serger and then turned under and overlocked - such a better method than sewing a casing and threading the elastic through with a safety pin because it stops the elastic twisting. I can definitely see this being a much neater finish on swimwear than a zig zag stitch. The only problem of course is that it's harder to tighten up or loosen the elastic waist if it's not fitting properly because you'd need to unpick all of the waistband, so you need to get that fit right the first time. I sewed on some black cotton tape at the centre of the waistband purely for decoration.

And so these slouchy pants are perfect for hanging out at home and getting into mischief - such as pretending to play golf with the toy golf clubs but really just hitting things with it (such a boy thing to do!)

or running around popping as many bubbles as he possibly could reach:

I braved the city Lincraft store at lunchtime today to buy an invisible zipper for my June Burda project - fingers crossed that Toby sleeps a bit better tonight so that I can finish it, better late than never!