Shorts

Here at The Home of Catchy Blog Post Titles, I've been sewing. Well, mostly I've been amassing fabric, thinking about sewing, and all that fun part of sewing. But I have been able to produce 2 pairs of shorts for Thalia:



from New Look 6354. Although she wanted them longer than the shorts they show on the pattern. The picture on the front of the pattern envelope is deceiving, by the way -- the inseam of the shorts really isn't very long. Pattern companies tend to make their illustrations very long and lean, have you noticed? Anyway, I drew a new length -- "drew" because I was tracing the pattern onto Pattern Ease. Pattern Ease is handy for messing around with patterns. It's sold at JoAnn's, and goes on sale when the interfacing is on sale, at which time I buy several yards.

Anyway, I made them about knee length. Also, she wanted a drawstring in the waist. After much discussion and pondering-of-options we ended up using double fold bias tape. I sewed it up so it wouldn't unfold (during which the needle fell out of the sewing machine and I put the new one in backwards, which, of course, means it won't sew right, which was about the time I started reconsidering my new plan to make the kids' Irish Dance solo dresses myself since I think you maybe need enough basic skill to put the flipping needle in correctly if you're going to attempt one of those).

The fabric is the linen blend that is on sale at JoAnn's for weeks at a time every spring. I also got enough to make a couple of pairs of capris for myself, but these will be a different pattern which will feature things like a zipper and pockets, which translates into "will take more than an hour to slap together".

Not exciting, groundbreaking sewing, but sometimes we just plod along making practical items for our families, building our skills. And sometimes the skills being built are as mundane as "able to trace patterns quickly" or "always remember to tighten needle screw better so needle doesn't fall out while sewing". Go forth and do likewise.