More pants/shorts

I like the way Thing 1's new pants with pockets turned out so well that I'm turning it into an assembly line. Yesterday I cut out ten pairs of pants and shorts (two pairs of shorts are for a friend's son for his birthday), all with pockets, and today I'm starting the assembly line for stitching them up. Four pairs are on the back burner, waiting for the serger to be rethreaded, but the other six will get white serger thread, so I've already begun assembling them.

I didn't mention this before, but I've been using an idea that Debbie Cook has mentioned before for the pocket bags: a fun print. Mind you, I'm only using that on the solid-colored pants/shorts. Anything that is made from a print (especially something loud, like the "disco pants") just gets a plain fabric for the pocket bag. That brings me to another idea - cheap fabric for pocket bags. The pocket bags really will only be seen by me (doing the laundry) or the wearer (assuming that he looks inside), so it doesn't really matter what you use for the bag. I got some bedsheets from someone on freecycle last fall, and while some were very nice, others were stained or simply way past their prime. I gave the good ones to a friend and kept the others to use for nonwearable muslins or inside blankets. When I made the first pair of pocket pants, I took the nonwearable muslin from my wrap skirt and cut pocket bags out of it. THis worked so well that I did it again when I cut all the pocket bags last night. (No more nonwearable muslin! I had to dig out the rest of the sheet last night. Twenty pocket bags takes a bit of fabric!)

Boy pants! (and a sweatshirt)

First up, because that's how Blogger put them, is the sweatshirt. Last year, Thing 2 didn't want to wear the pants or sweatshirt made from this fabric. What a difference a year makes, huh? Now he'll tell me he's cold and wants his sweatshirt to wear. And Thing 1 is jealous because I didn't make him one this year....maybe I should fix that....

Then the lone pair of knit pants for Thing 2 - I sort of figured that I should cut this pair out and stitch it up quickly, as the serger thread was right, and he needs longer ones. Nothing fancy about these.

But here's the fun part - the "stack of boy pants" that's been in the works for a bit! The first two that I finished were the Spiderman (Thing 1) and Transformers (Thing 2). Both were thrilled with their new pants and wore them almost immediately.

Then I finished the rest of the stack for Thing 1: a juvenile pirate print, what DH calls the black "disco" print, and, of course, Transformers! These were a definite hit, especially Transformers. :)

And here's a gratuitous shot of the contrasting pocket bag colors I used. For Thing 2's Transformer's pants, I used red - to make it even easier to differentiate.

I have plenty more "boy pants" to make, but these were the most urgent, as the days will soon be too cool to wear these lighter weight pants. Thing 1's pants came from KS 3042, and Thing 2's sweatshirt and pants all came from KS SFT.

Finished items!

First up, the wedding boxers:


This print is so loud, and the flannel-backed satin just makes it even more over the top! I think that DB will love them. In fact, they might end up as the boxers to be worn under the tux - how funny would that be? :)

Next, the pants with slash pockets:

I added another picture with a fish puppet in the pocket, just to show the shape of the pocket. I love how these turned out! DH thinks that the print makes Thing 1 ready for disco night, but as I pointed out to him, these are for play pants, and I'd rather do the experiment with a cheaper fabric (in this case, a remnant) than something expensive. Thing 1 loves them, and he wore them all day after I finished them.

I've already made another pair of pants with pockets, and I have plans for lots more!

ARGH!

Yep, that's frustration you're hearing. I took the monsters along when I went out to work a rodeo last night, and I had planned to have at least one of Thing 2's new shoes done in time for him to wear. Yeah, the best laid plans and all that....

First, I kept getting interrupted by people calling. Well, actually, first I kept procrastinating and doing other stuff, and second, I got interrupted. Then I had major technical difficulties. Don't know if it was the leather, the thread, the needle, or all around bad sewing mojo. But I finally gave up. I had run out of the gold jeanstitch thread after stitching down the casings on the heels, so I switched to the cream upholstery thread I have. Got the trim and the toe guards stitched down, then started to stitch the uppers to the soles. I have one down and still probably a third of the other to go, but that's where the majorly bad mojo occurred. And I was getting awfully low on the upholstery thread, too. Oh, yeah, and I went through three leather needles, trying to rescue the attempt that way. No such luck.

So today I bought more jeanstitch and upholstery thread at WM while grocery shopping (along with a neat variegated green that I hope will be showing up on some green "disco" pants soon), but WM does not carry leather needles. Oh, darn, I have to go to JAF again....where I was good and walked out with the leather needles and three colors of heavy polyester thread. I keep hearing that polyester thread is best for shoes, since cotton will wick, but I've never looked closely enough to realize that the only kind of polyester only thread JAF carries is the "heavy dual-duty XP" thread. So I'll see how that works...maybe on the denim pair. Oh yeah, and I'm also planning to put a Thomas the Tank Engine applique on the denim pair. We'll see how that goes....hopefully later this afternoon....