Fun with Boxers!

Ed loves it when I make him boxers. It means he doesn't have to shop for them, lucky man! Since the pattern I use only uses 1 yard of fabric sometimes he gets rather interesting (or ugly!) boxers. 2 of these 3 pairs are pretty fun. Apples and airplanes; what more could a man want?
Kwik Sew 1672 which I ordered off eBay and is probably OOP now. It looks like it is from the 80's truth be told. They also have a "high cut" version that has a rounded hem rather than a straight. Not that Ed would ever be caught dead in a pair like that, so that version doesn't ever get made.

The pattern is extremely fast to make and you can do it assembly line if preferred, although I do them one at a time. The elastic waist is pretty fun to do, although the first line of stitching can be tricky, which it wouldn't be if I pinned the elastic more than I do. The seams are 1/4 except for the waist and I use my Singer Tiny Serger (just an overedger really it doesn't do any cutting) for all the seams to that they will stand up to the abuse that undies can get. The fly stitching can be a pain, but really I'm not that accurate with it. I could do better on the fly stitching, but seriously they are just boxers so why bother? I hate unpicking, so if the stitching line goes a little further than it should who is going to notice? The only person looking at Ed's boxers is Ed and myself, lol!

For now my cutting tables (card tables) are on loan from a charity yard sale we did last weekend for a group of Firefly/Serenity fans that we belong to. So, I can't cut out anything else for a few days and my rivets still haven't arrived. I'm project-less, egad!

Some Actual Sewing For a Change

I've actually been sewing! I've worked on a great pair of jeans that have yet to be hemmed and am working on another pair for Ed. We bought some rivets for them online and are just waiting for them to arrive. Until then the project sits undisturbed.

But, I sewed my butt off last week and made 4 little girls shirts for my neice. Her mother commented to me that she could never find school shirts that fit her (she is in between a size 1/2 and 1 in kids - sewing pattern size that is). She is 3 years old and in some pre-k program at her big brothers school and they require all children to wear uniforms. Either tan or navy shorts with a plain colored shirt. Not terribly restricting but everything that comes in an XS for the girl is always in a print of some sort. So she doesn't have a great variety of school shirts to wear.

Well, I've fixed that. The shirts will go out in the mail probably this week after I put the buttons on the red shirt. I made 4 shirts, all in different colors and using either large scraps or one yard-1 1/2 yard pieces. I guess this could be considered a one yarder project (in fact, so are the boxers I did that are coming up next):

View B

View A sleeves, view B collar

View A

View B

The pattern for the shirt is New Look 6880. It has two views, one for a girl with the peter pan collar and puffy, gathered sleeves and one for a boy with the traditional collar and regular set in sleeves. On one version of mine (the red) I switched things up a bit and gave her the regular collar with the puffy, gathered sleeves.

The collar in view A is a pain to make, which is why I made more of the collars in view B for most of her shirts. They were extremely quick to make and simple. There was no interfacing to be cut anywhere and all the facings were of plain fabric, which gives for a softer look and feel than collars for adults in a similar pattern. View A also has you insert elastic into the sleeve hem, forming a casing. Which isn't a big deal, it actually makes that sleeves bigger so they fit around the arm on my sewing machine, which view B sleeves do not.

All in all I give New Look 6880 a thumbs up. I can't comment on the sizing since I don't have the neice here to try it on for me, but if it does run big I can always go down a size on the next batch of shirts since I think that this pattern is going to be a staple in her wardrobe for school.

Up next...boxers. Stay tuned.

Baby Shorts

I don't have kids, but my brother has 2 little ones that are 3 and 6 and they just had another not too long ago. If my sister-in-law ever gets me the measurements for the bigger kids (it's going on a month now...ahem) I can make them some cute clothes and I have a pirate costume planned for my nephew. But, I digress...I picked up a kids pattern at the thrift store for 69 cents and it has a cute and very simple pair of baby shorts or panties, depending on what material you make them out of I guess. So far I've made 2:

One in a scrap of floral fabric that I got in a grab bag that was too small for anything else and another in a light weight denim. I hemmed and hawwed (or is that hawed?) about the denim thinking it may be a little too rough, but I'll let mommy decide that. These are sized to a small since I got the baby's weight and the pattern thankfully wasn't in measurements, which is a little bigger than my neice but babies grow fast, so I figure by the time I have these in the mail she'll fit into them.

And an update to the Superman Project...it's done! I just need to get it washed since it has picked up every since piece of thread it touched, and then photographed. Stay tuned for the grand finale!

A Brief Intermission

I've been a little ill the last few days and haven't been up to working on the Superman jacket. So, I made what we've been needing badly. Zippered pouches to hold our mp3 players. It's hard to keep the earbuds and the player all together in a pocket or a purse without it tangling, so I used this tutorial to make a lined zippered pouch. Mine is on the left and is larger because I wanted the ability to watch movies on my player (which means it has a small screen) if I was sitting in a doctors office, and Ed's is the smaller and just functions as an mp3 player so he can listen to audiobooks at work (he does graphic design work). Both were bought, I might add, utilizing sales and shopping the best deals at the time, and were also saved for, rather than it being a rash decision. The Budget and all...

The larger polka dot pouch has a blue heart lining and uses a vintage zipper, bought at one thrift store or another. The smaller, check pattern (which only matches by chance!) has a red lining to match the vintage red zipper. Very guy, if I do say so. Thankfully I had a small scrap of the check fabric that I got in some large bag of scraps. It wasn't big enough to make much else, except maybe another pouch.

One Yarder, Fast Project

I'm recovering from a small medical procedure, so any long term projects are put on hold. But, I've managed to start and finish a small project using only a single yard of fabric, which is great to use up leftover fabric too.

This is Kwik Sew 1672 an 80's OOP that I purchased off of ebay some time ago. It uses a single yard of fabric and is absolutely perfect for making boxers for Ed because getting him to go shopping for anything new is like pulling teeth. On the other hand he doesn't mind going fabric shopping with me, so if we find a cool fabric he likes it usually gets made into another pair of boxers. This fabric was a whopping dollar from the big W. Cost is about $2.00 per pair or less if I can find el cheapo fabric, which isn't bad considering that it's easier to make a pair than to get him to go buy clothes. It uses plain pajama/underwear elastic along the waistband and is a pretty fun and easy pattern to make. There are two views, one that has the squared leg and one that curves upwards (think 80's short short for men).

The leg detail is the fiddliest:
And yes, the sides don't match. I'm not that advanced yet, and it would mean I had to use more than one yard.

I did have to make some adjustments since the seam allowance is only 1/4 inch. The slits needed have an additional 1/4 added to each edge since it would have left a raw edge if I only folded it over once, like the instructions say to.