Baby Jeans

I've finally accomplished one of the activities on my list! Funny how having a baby to sew for suddenly means you don't have time for any sewing... But, at last, here's Asher in his home made jeans:

I don't think he's feeling very well today so I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get photos. I keep admiring them when I look at him though!

I probably spent about three hours in total on these. But I've been working on them since the end of February... I guess three hours is about how much spare time I get in two weeks!

I started by making a pattern, using the classic trace-an-existing-pair method. I made a back and a front pattern piece so that I could make the back waistband higher than the front, and so that I could try out a flat-fronted design. Neither of which are really necessary for baby trousers, but I wanted to give it a go, and I think they look nice like that.

I got some ideas/inspiration from this series of tutorials on making children's trousers at MADE.

Seam allowance added with the help of a quilting ruler... Time to start cutting! I made a trial pair first out of an old t-shirt; they fitted Ash fine, so I was ready for the real thing.

One of the things I find most difficult about making clothes is sourcing appropriate fabrics. There's the wonderful Fashion and Fabrics in St Albans, which stocks a huge selection of quilting cottons at the back. The front of the shop holds basic cotton fabrics for dressmaking, and assorted haberdashery. In the middle there is a huge floor-to-ceiling stack of Other Fabrics. But I feel a bit of an impostor whenever I go in - I don't really have a clue about textiles - and I never feel sufficiently knowledgable (read: brave) to pull anything out of the stack.

Fortunately, baby clothes are so tiny that my discarded garments provide plenty of fabric! Rooting around in the bottom of the wardrobe, I found my old favourite jeans: comfy, warm, bright green pocket linings... and now too big (not to mention hard-worn and badly mended). Perfect! As I was cutting them up I decided that I liked the look of the denim on the inside, so I chose to use that as the right side for Ash's jeans. I also decided to make external pockets from the beloved pocket lining (far too green to waste!)

I constructed the trousers by sewing the side seams first (not without adding two rows of lime green topstitching!) then the crotch seam. My favourite way to sew the latter is by turning one leg inside out then putting the right-way-out leg inside the inside out leg, so that the right sides are together inside the trousers. Then sew along the crotch seam. (Don't do what I did the first time I tried this, making my pyjamas: I accidentally sewed the front waistband to the back waistband, with very odd-looking results. Wish I'd taken a photo...)



I should then have sewn the back waistband and inserted the elastic before sewing the front shut too. Instead I sewed all the way around, then realised I would need a gap at both sides (because I only wanted to elasticate the back). So I had to unpick. In the end it was quite handy that I had elastic access points because the jeans turned out far too baggy for Ash and I had to adjust. Two teeny-tiny leg hems later, the jeans were complete. Yay!

The finished product

Accidentally inaccessible pockets

Oh, I made another silly mistake... when I cut the pocket openings I totally forgot that I was planning for the pockets to extend up to the top of the waistband. So... I stitched right through them! There's no chance that even the tiniest of baby hands could access these pockets. I'm glad I made this mistake on a set of pockets the owner is incapable of using (Ash is still sitting on the fence with regard to the motion "I have hands") but I find it amusing that I accidentally made fake pockets, one of my all-time favourite clothing moans. If fake pockets had a Like button, I would not Like them.

As I mentioned, poor Asher has not been a cheerful chappie today. He is grumpy, hungry, tired (but not sleeping much) and generally quite resembling his mum on a bad day :) - so for a final photo all I have to offer is this one, snapped during one of today's almost hourly feeds:

Mum's-eye view (I have seen a lot of this today!)