Friday, October 14, 2011

Big Pickle Pants

Making a pair of jeans for the Big Pickle was definitely the most ambitious project I had set out on in a while. It was also my first project from the one year subscriptions worth of fabulous Ottobre magazines I had been pouring over for the past 18 months.


When I spotted the "Huomio" worker pants in the Spring 1/2010 edition I knew the large pocket details would be a perfect way to showcase one of the great Japanese transport prints from Superbuzzy I'd been gazing at in my cupboard for months. Sadly, none of them are still available but they do have a different colourway of the train one still. This store is one of my fabric online fabric haunts but I have only ever made the one purchase as their postage rates are horrific.


With extensive topstitching (something my machine and I still need to work on), a zipper fly (my first one), keepers, waistband, a contrast yoke and the cuffs (a detail I decided to add to ensure this complex project could be worn for as long as possible) this was a full days work. 
Amazingly, I actually got a full day to work on them thanks to a bonding day between the Pickles and their dad.
 

I didn't actually do a great deal of fitting during the making process other than slipping one leg up over the Pickles long lanky limb and determining that they seemed to be a good match. A couple of days after finishing them I put them on him for their first outing. All was good until he went to sit down - 'they hurt my tummy a bit mummy. They're too tight'. This mama is ashamed to report that pressed for time to get out the door to playgroup and really keen for him to wear them, I undid the waist button and said 'how's that?'. 'Better' he said. 'Good' said I, 'just try not to sit down too much'. Since then I have removed the waistband and replaced it with a wider, longer one that he finds much more comfortable.



 As soon as I saw this great car print, I knew it would really appeal to the Big Pickle and also knew it had to be teamed with some of the grey cotton canvas fabric I had previously used in a pair of the Little Pickles pants. It took some searching, Amitie no longer had it,  but I eventually tracked this down again through Duckcloth. I highly recommend this range of fabrics as they are great to sew with, durable and come in great colours.



 I used this pattern for these pants, the flat front version, and extended it to match Big Pickle's measurements. The cuff was an add-on so that I could have a bit more of the car print and also to create further longevity for this ever growing boy. When I had cut the pieces out they looked really skinny. Luckily, probably because I was sewing at my mum's house, I investigated further and by comparing them to some other pants of his I could see these were just not going to be wide enough at the top to cover even his very compact bottom. Mum's wisdom allowed me to avoid panicking and going into a conniption of sadness at the possibility of wasting any of the precious fabric and on her ingenious suggestion I cut the strip to go down the side. Any concerns that I had now created some very lairy pants were alleviated by his declaration that they are 'funky pants' and a plea to not only wear them straight away but also have his photo taken in them.


As you can see he's rocking his funky pants and quite duly loving himself in them!

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