Now Let's See Who's Wearing the Pants

As my adventures in sewing with knit fabrics continues, I ventured into the land of pajama pants this week.

K-ster has had a pair of lounge pants for well over a decade and they are missing some serious fabric in places.  I know they are over 10 years old because they came from a store that no longer exists.  They have lasted and lasted and except for a big hole and a fraying waistband, they are surprisingly not bad.

He wears a few pair of nylon running pants but I seriously hate them for a whole slew of reasons.

And then there are the fabulous Corona pants that came in a can.  Someone gave them for Christmas eons ago and they hold up nicely but he needs something else.

When he saw my knits for me, he asked me to make him some pants.

Sadly, his requirement of "Bruins colors or Bruins logo" wasn't met, but I did whip up these bad boys in his favorite color.

The problem with sewing for tall k-ster vs. short me is the amount of fabric required.  I didn't quite need the amount I thought I did during this fiasco, but I still needed 3 yards to make them happen.  Even when the fabric is on sale, it's not proving to make sense financially to make rather than buy these pants.

I did discover a few changes that need to be made.  He isn't 14 feet tall, so I could reduce the amount by almost 12 inches and the width at the bottom of was equal to the top.  This is not so good, as we discovered the hard way one morning.

He was standing and the next thing I knew, he was stumbling-lurching-falling toward me because he had started to walk but got caught in the "bell bottoms" as he called them and stumbled.

So, I tapered them like the fabulous pants I started out talking about, and it's much better.  If I make them again, I know where I need to cut back.  But still, it will be well over 2 yards that I need and unless the material falls off the back of a truck somewhere, I'm not sure I will bother.

I have two favorite parts of these pants.

The first is the waistband which makes it feel like they will last forever.  A wider elastic would make more sense here, for sure.

The second is that my serger was exceptional the day I made these.  I have never seen it breeze through something so nicely.  When I first started, there was a serious problem and I almost just went to the regular machine because I don't know enough about my serger to know how to troubleshoot.  I did determine that the issue seemed to be at the needle and not in the ever hidden internal parts, so I rethreaded that one needle and it totally worked.  It made me want to make a million knits right now because it's worked so beautifully.

No waves, no weird stitch issues.

I seem to have exhausted the supply of knits at my local Joann fabrics.  I'm not looking for solid colors but the prints are all way too over the top for me right now.    I'm not the biggest fan of prints.   I have no idea what I'd be looking for online, so I think the knit bus stops here for me right now.  Sad, because I'm just getting into the groove and my serger is upstairs whispering for more.

K-ster won't model for us, so I'll leave you wondering what message we were all trying to convey in 1991:

Linking here:
http://www.myturnforus.com/2014/08/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy_28.html
http://www.glitterglueandpaint.com/project-pin-41/
http://www.adornedfromabove.com/2014/08/wednesdays-adorned-from-above-link_26.html