The background: I technically know how to sew. As in, I can thread my machine (a Janome Jem Gold, actually), wind bobbins and make it go. I can almost make a straight line. I know what a seam allowance is! See, when we moved, I went from my "little kid's bed" (it must have been a short full, it was wider than a twin) to my "grown up bed" (a beautiful queen sized bed that I finally have in the new apartment). And we decided I need an awesome quilt to go with it. I was in middle school at the time. So we started to collect fabrics, and my mom looked at patterns. And some time during high school, my mother got me this traveling sewing machine, so I could work on my quilt, and could take the machine to college with me (and I did!).
My family has a long and proud tradition of unfinished projects. My mom has various needlecraft things partially finished--lots of different kinds of embroidery, quilting and I don't know what else. She did make my Halloween costumes for me as a kid, though. My dad actually got the doll house for my sister put together. It never got stairs, much less decorated. The quilt is still not done.
Anyway, I need to actually be able to do something useful with my sewing machine, rather than just look at it. And I decided that M needs new pj pants. Pretty desperately. Then I ran across the aforementioned contest. So, not knowing any sewers locally (how would you find them anyway?) I went Rav, like any sane knitter would. And on the Sew Obsessed group, I posted asking if anyone was interested in playing along. Since I wasn't sure if this technically meets the rules, but I wanted to do it anyway, I figured it wasn't like I was loosing anything by getting someone to help me. So Beeknitbee said she would help me. It just so happens she is a phenomenal sewer.
My Journey:
I washed the fabric. It shrunk. Beeknitbee said I should wash it again (this time guarding against fraying by stitching around the edges). So I did.
waiting to be washed again
Then I traced out the pants. This involved lots of fighting. I remembered that the hu'band actually has a new pair of pants that fit him infinitely better, but they are made out of sweatshirt material. And they have very strong elastic at the waistband. They were rejected as a template, and I ended up having to use the flannel pants, and adjust their size.
I realized later that I took this picture before I straightened out the pants. I was testing to see if they would be less finicky than the others. They were much much better.
I added two inches to all the seams, except the hem. There I added 8. This seems like a lot, but the difference between the two pants is four inches. Plus with the flannel shrinkage, I'm afraid of them continuing to shrink--clearly his UT pants have shrunk quite a bit. It's not like I'm expecting him to grow any taller! So, I'll hem them up four inches, and as they shrink, make them longer. whee!
These are the Florida State pants. It's a little bit wider than the half inch seam they suggest, but these pants don't like laying flat very much (which is why I rejected them as templates) and so it's not actually that much.
I do have better photo taking skills than this, it just made me laugh, it looking like a classic 'bad unit photo' (I'm an archaeologist, so instead of a skirt and sparkly toenails, normally you would see dirty boots, and a 1 x 1 meter square hole instead of a sewing project). Anyway, proving to myself that the fabric is in fact long enough for the extra hemming.