After School Pants

The Oliver + S After School Pants are just the cutest fitting kid's pants ever.

It had been quite a few years since I'd made these pants - A had a couple of pairs as a two year old (here, here and here) and P had some made as jeans when he was about 4 (here)

When I was rummaging in the fabric stash and pulling out other pale pink and mauve things I found this cut of a Bettina Liano stretch velour corduroy. I'd bought it ages ago along with some pale blue (used here and here) from The Fabric Store. A new pair of After School Pants seemed the perfect pattern/fabric match.

These are a straight size 7 and are a perfect fit - although they were photographed in a rush and I hadn't noticed the front was pushed down and not looking like such a great fit after all. They're fine when worn normally, not prancing for photos, or trying to flash your tummy. Trust me.

I thoroughly enjoyed sewing them and was all set to cut another pair but decided that sleeping and getting ready for our holiday probably needed to take priority!

But now that winter really seems to be on it's way, and this girl is suddenly in a pants not dresses phase I can see that I probably will make them again before she outgrows the traced off pattern. Odds are I'll need to add a bit of length though as she's growing like a weed.

It's couture knock off time! Kenzo Kids style

I could be accused of getting carried away with "project" sewing (Exhibit A, Exhibit B) but there's a lot of fun to be had in making things just a bit more than was required....

P needed another pair of these pants:

I'd bought these from a now defunct store called Kids on Parade which sold lots of high end fashion clothes for kids. I suspect everyone else, like me, only bought anything from there when it was heavily discounted in the sales. These Kenzo Kids pants were one such bargain

They are a size 4 and have a lovely slim fit and have been P's good pants for almost two years but they're definitely now too short. I wanted to try and make my own and replicate all these little designer-y features.

I experimented with the patterns I had that seemed appropriate and came up with my Pattern Mash Prototype pants. They have proven to be a great pair of pants but were a little more of a relaxed fit than I wanted so I took half an inch of each back panel at the side seam. I also raised the back yoke seam about an inch by adding to the pants panels and subtracting from the yoke.

Then I took the scissors to the old pants and stole all those Kenzo tags (sadly not the pocket rivets as they're one use only)

Essentially I used the front of the Oliver + S Field Trip pants and the back of the After School pants, splitting the front pants to include the extra inner leg panel.

 

I bought some little pyramid rivets from Jimmy's Buttons which is also where I found this grey denim remnant. There was about a metre and a half on the roll and I paid 5 bucks for it!

 



I'm not sure what kind of modelling style we're channelling here....

So there are my Kenzo knock off pants, modelled above with (yet another) Flashback Skinny T

But I couldn't stop just with the pants. Nope, if you're going to wear Kenzo, it would seem you need to get a tiger on your sweater....

The idea of knocking off one of these sweaters with some fleecy sweater knit and fabric paint from Spotlight was just too amusing (for me at least)

I did a dry run here using the Field trip pattern again for the sweater, but decided in the end to do an upsized Flashback Skinny T. I cut a size 9/10 in width and size 5 in length. The blue striped one earlier is straight size 5 and perfect as a close fitted T-shirt using very stretchy fabric. This one could still do with more depth in the armholes and sleeve width and I should have cut the neck-hole back at the smaller size but I'm happy with it.

....if only cause it was fun to paint!

It's a long blog post, but stick around if you're curious as to how some of these things were done.....

First up, the detail on the pants pocket: I don't have a fancy sewing machine that does embroidery so there was no way of perfectly replicating the mid section of the pocket detail from the original pants.

But my sewing machine can do these stitches:

So I used the Orange A stitch for the straight lines and a couple of rows of the Blue J stitch to get the wavy midsection effect

 

And after Heidi taught me to topstitch with two threads I thought I'd try for three!  Using three lots of regular thread is STILL easier than trying to thread a needle with that thick topstitching thread! Here's another shot of how they all sat atop the machine:

 



Now to the sweater....

I downloaded the clearest and flattest picture I could find of the tiger logo and then traced it to tidy up some of the lines and make it clearer. Then from this image I traced again, using a Iron-on Transfer Pencil onto baking paper.

At this step the image needs to be in reverse. If you have a really clear image you can flip your paper over and trace it from behind. Otherwise, when printing the image you need to select T-shirt transfer paper as your printing medium and the printer will reverse the image for you. Or I guess you could reverse the image in any photo editing software before you print. Anyway, make sure it's back to front.

Put your traced picture facing down onto the fabric and iron it on. Be careful as the pencil marks do not wash off and the print is not really useful a second time over without recolouring all the lines. you can just see that I've drawn up a grid with washable pencil markings to make sure I got it straight first go.

Then you simply paint over the drawn lines. I used Setacolour brand paint as the green paint and it is lovely to work with. Two layers gave a good depth of colour with no brush marks. The orange paint however, was Jones Tones and it needs a lot more layers and then develops quite a thick plastic-ky feel and you can still see through it a bit.

 

These paints only take a few hours to be dry to touch and then you iron them (with a baking paper sheet or similar over the paint to stop it sticking to the iron) for a few minutes. Then they wash and wear really well.

So there's my Kenzo Kids knock off outfit.... As I'm posting this last picture I'm making myself laugh wondering if there's any way I can incorporate a conical Gaultier bra into a  princess dress-up costume for A...

Prototype Pants : Pattern Mash

I've been planning a pair of pants to go with the "too scary" tiger jumper. I don't have a pattern for the jumper, or ribbing for the cuffs (thanks everyone for your tips), nor did I have a pattern for the pants. But none of those technicalities can keep this good idea down.

 

The trousers that I want to make are a copy of a pair of pants that I picked up on sale for P back when I was buying clothes for the kids. The front has articulated knees and a faux fly and the back has a full leg with a yoke at the waist area. There are some wonderful stitched details on the pockets and some little fancy designer tags that I'm going to pilfer for my knock-off copy-pants. They fit wonderfully well for a long time but he is finally outgrowing them.

 

Without a pattern that had all the required elements I decided to mash a couple of patterns and see what came of it.

 

I had the front of the pants covered with my Field Trip pattern and then the back looked like it wanted to be a pair of After School pants.

 

Can you make the front of one pair of trousers and stick them on the back of another? I had no idea, but I was prepared to have a go. Or, in more fancy sewing talk, to make a wearable muslin (ooooh,... I find it quietly hilarious when I start sounding like I know what I'm doing)

 

I figured as long as the front and back pieces ended up the same length along the side seams it would work. And it kinda did. There's probably a bit more 'room' at the rear than there needs to be and there may have been a little bit of tugging to get some bits to line up and be sewn but in all they look like one pair of pants.

 

The fabric that I used is a light weight drill with a self stripe that may have a bit more bias stretch than the fabric intended for my ultimate pants. I may make some minor adjustments to my pattern pieces or I'll just cut it with my fingers crossed for luck.

The pants were a pretty quick sew as I left off the cargo pockets and did minimal top stitching in keeping with them being a practice run. Then I spent ages in paint.net making myself a little Pattern Mash button!
 

 

The other element of my designer daks that I wanted to copy was a thin section in the inner leg. The After School pants has an outer leg stripe which had to be taken out of the pattern piece that I had for the back pants. I held my fingers against the pattern pieces and guessed that the back pattern piece would need to be a few fingers wider to make up for the lack of the side leg section. I think I effectively cut the size 5 pants piece but took the side seam out to the size 8 line.

then I sliced the front pants pattern piece to give myself this inner leg section:

In order to do this I had to fold the articulated knee pattern piece in the middle to make it the same width as the adjusted upper and lower leg pieces. By folding it I was able to preserve the knee darts of the original pattern piece.

To make that mash more palatable here's the summary:
1. Field Trip front pants - narrowed by a inner leg strip
2. After School rear view - widened to side seam
3. Field Trip rear pockets rather than the smaller After School ones
 

So there's my Pattern Mash pants. I'll tweak them a bit for the final version I think...

Here is the button that I made with some HTML code for anyone else to have it too.

<a href="http://bartacksandsingletrack.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Pattern Mash ; Bartacks and Singletrack" src="http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l58/sette_budini/patternmash.jpg" /></a>

I'm not kidding myself that anyone else will want to grab my button I just wanted to learn how to write the code to do it! Thanks to Teacher Blogging Basics for the clear instructions.

 

And here's P hanging out in his new pants.

 

 

 

 Today's photo shoot was brought to you by Puffin and Big Bird.

 

KCW: Pants part three

Another pair of old maternity jeans cut up. Another pair of After School Pants.

This time I left off any fancy topstitching and just did a single thread edgestitch to get the seams to lay flat. But I did choose the frilly option of view B. Fourth time round for this pattern and I got a bit clever thinking I knew what I was doing. Of course I sewed a panel on the wrong way, couldn't work out why it was too long and almost trimmed the bottom off thinking I'd miscut the fabric. Thankfully I realised my mistake or they might have become shorts!

Using a worn pair of jeans meant that there's a bit of colour variation where the panels meet, but the denim is so nice and soft compared to the new, stiff stuff I touch and then don't buy in the big fabric store.

The patterned fabric is a Japanese lawn from Spotlight that I teamed with denim here as well.

I had thought I'd try for a fourth pair of pants this week, but with only one sewing night left in Kid's Clothes Week I'm not tempted to start something that I won't finish. I'm actually looking forward to packing up and having a night off from tomorrow.

So what to do tonight? I've heard it said that the Roller Skate dress is a trace, cut and sew in 1 night pattern, so I think I might try. I'm after a bit of instant gratification and it will tick one more of my unused patterns off the list.

I'm really looking forward to having a bit of time to look at everyone else's creations and catch up on some beautifully clothed and photographed kids on blogs out there.

KCW: Pants Pride!

A little while ago I posed the question to the clever crowd who frequent the Oliver + S forum of how to get the best topstitching effect. One answer intrigued me; With Love Heidi (A moniker that sounds friendly but a bit Bond girl as well) suggested using regular thread but doubling it up.

I'm happy to say this is superb advice. I've been topstitching like a fiend recently. It's far easier to thread two lots of regular thread than trying to thread a needle with topstitching thread. And that's even after I bought some special "embroidery" sewing needles. The definition that it gives is really nice, and as importantly, it saves buying reels of topstitching weight thread that then can't be used for anything else.

Speaking of reels of thread that never get used again, here's a few reels of thread that I bought ages ago to decorate the edges of some waffled cotton dribble rags for my then newborn.

I don't know what the official length of these thread reels is, but they seem to be never-ending. I immediately wondered what it might look like to use double thread of variegated cotton to do topstitching...

Here's the answer:

Really gay! (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That)

Someone with a bit more imagination than me might have guessed that I'd end up with a pair of rainbow pants, but I confess I really didn't see it coming.

But you know what, I  kinda like them. This is not at all my usual colour scheme. The fabric is a very weird, synthetic stretch, ribbed suiting that I picked up so cheap that these pants probably cost about 80 cents. I don't think they'll ever wear out and certainly won't require ironing or any care.

What's more, Australia desperately needs more pairs of gay pride pants on toddlers. We are being embarrassingly left behind when it comes to marriage equality. No less than 14 countries have legalised same sex marriage, yet it's something we can't even get a conscience vote on in our parliament.

For heaven's sake, even New Zealand are OK with it. Now they're not just 2 hours ahead of us but about 50 years ahead culturally.

So here's another photo of my Pride Pants:

 

 



And finally, let's let the pants themselves have the last word:

Right on, little pair of gay, polyester pants, I hear what you're saying.
Loud and proud!

If this bum crack has offended, make some pants and all is mended....

Or rather that's what I'd hoped for.

For some time now, my hipless, darling son has demonstrated a frightening tendency to builder's butt whenever he played on the floor or bent over.

These Burda pants seemed to be the worst culprits:

Unfortunately I made three pairs of them at last year, so the chance of copping an eyeful of plumber's crack is pretty high.

I've had a bit more luck with the Oliver + S Field Trip cargo pants. Although only after I shortened the waist elastic to super tight. A push on the swings at the park with the original waistband had me thinking about where I'd parked my bike! Home we rode and the pants were successfully adjusted.

So I decided to try the Oliver + S After School pants next. It's a bit more of a feminine looking pattern with the lack of a front fly. But I think I'd "boy-ed" them up enough.

I made them out of a pair of maternity jeans that I cut up and there was just enough fabric for the jeans, but not for the pocket lining, so P and I happily agreed to use the last scraps of his LEGO fabric for the inner pockets.

So how's the rear view?.....

Pretty darn cute I say.
For the first time I tried a flat felled seam at the crotch. I used the tutorial linked to The Oliver + S blog and it was very clear. Unfortunately I'd cut some big chunky pattern marking notches into the seam allowances and I wanted my stitching lines to be quite far apart to match the rest of the topstitching, so getting the edges tucked under nicely was difficult. It's definitely a finish I'll use again, very neat on the inside and hopefully as strong as can be.

And back to the original problem, well, when we set off to the shops and P climbed out of the car, I was reminded to feed the parking meter......

To try and salvage this lame blogpost, I'm happy to announce that I raced my mountain bike today (took the Scott Scale 10 out), got beaten by the kids on a steam train, but came in third in the Open Women category and got my first podium finish in over 4 years!
Maybe the bad jokes means I'm overtired and should go to bed.....

Next week I'm joining in with Kid's Clothes Week and I'm continuing with the theme of pants. Two pairs each for the kids should keep me busy enough. Happy sewing to all.