Fiber Fool

Pattern: Simplicity 4377, View A, Pants Only
Fabric: 3.5 yds Clearance Cotton from Hancock Fabrics, Scraps from first two-tone skirt, Wright’s Piping, Offray Ribbon, 3/4″ Wide No-Roll Elastic
Recipient: My Sister, Amber
Cost: ~$12, not including pattern price

Notes: I learned many things with this project. It was my first set of pants. I had made a pair of shorts in seventh grade home ec, but that was an awful long time ago. I made my first buttonholes. I tried my first facing hem for the pant bottoms and am still not entirely successful. I used piping for the first time. The drawstring techniques was unique - the back half of the drawstring is actually elastic! That works quite well. I learned this size is indeed a bit large for me. I can certainly go down one size if not two.

On the first leg of the pants I pressed the facing in half and turned in the raw edges, sewed it to match the circumference of the leg bottom (I thought). Then I slipped the bottom of the leg into the facing, pinned it and sewed it in place with the zipper foot so that I could stitch close to the piping. I ended up with a couple puckers in the contrasted facing. For the second leg, I again pressed the facing, but then sewed the inside of the facing in place so I knew where to close the circle. Then I turned it right side out, folded the facing up, pinned it and the piping in place and sewed around the leg one more time. I still ended up with a few puckers in the contrasting fabric. *sigh* I’ll get it eventually I suppose. The puckers don’t matter too much since they are PJ or lounge pants.

I am giving the pants to my sister. I thought I’d sew some for her first to check the sizing. She and I are big PJ people. I get new PJs from her about every other year for Christmas. These will match her slippers that she got for Christmas 2005. I’m not sure if I’ll be successful in hanging onto them until her birthday in October or until Christmas next year. I may end up shipping them off to her as a surprise before then. We’ll see. I will want to find some sort of t-shirt or something to go with them too.

I have this same fabric in warm tones for me. I’m also thinking I’m going to use an orphaned top sheet to make another pair as well. Aside from the facing at the bottom of the pant leg these were very easy and quick to make.

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For more eye candy, check out Chris’ Gentleman Socks!

See Vera’s Two Thumbs Up, also made out of handspun! (Google’s English Translation)

Yesterday seemed a touch like a lion itself. We had snow showers for a good share of the morning and midday. I think today takes the lion cake though. It is windy and gusty, especially here where we have a large open space on the windward side and are just a stones throw from the foothills.

You know how some do a random Wednesday? Well, let’s call today Wednesday, shall we?

Fort Collins has been slowly loosing its donut shops. My favorite, because I am a big fan of cake donuts was Dutch Boy and they closed to the public well over a year ago and I think they are gone for good now. Then a few months ago we notice that our other long time donut shop, Daylight Donuts had closed. A few years ago we got a Lamar’s Donuts but I was not impressed. For me their donuts were much too sweet. It seems to be if you are frosting, glazing, or sprinklin powdered sugar on a donut, the donut itself should only be slightly sweet. Anyway, none of these donut shops were open 24 hours. They all closed sometime in the afternoon. Yes, I do realize that donuts are traditionally a morning treat, however, it seemed DH and I would always get a craving for them in the later evening.

Enter - Revolution Donuts! For those familiar with Ft. Collins, they are in the old Daylight Donut location near City Park. Their hours? 6am - 1pm everyday, 8pm - 2am Sunday - Wednesday, and 8pm - 4am Thursday - Saturday! Yes! We have donuts at night now!!!!!! We don’t know how long they have been open. We first noticed them when we were heading home after the opera the other weekend. At first we thought perhaps they had forgotten to shut off the Open sign so when we saw them lit up again some time last week we pulled through to look at their hours and then we did a happy dance :-) It isn’t a Dunkin’ Donuts. They do not have a large selection - just white, chocolate, and marble cake donuts, Bavarian cream filled or unfilled long johns with chocolate, white, or maple icing, raised glazed or frosted, and fritters. But what we’ve had so far as been quite good. I hope they’ll branch out to a wider selection in the future.

I’ve very nearly completed the knit for pay project. I had to do quite a bit of running around town to locate some of the items required for finishing, but I did finally find what I needed once my contact talked to the designer for some further clarification. I hope they make note of it in the pattern as I suspect it would save many the frustrations and odd looks I got from fabric store employees.

Oh, and another question for you sewers out there - Are there any tricks for putting a cuff instead of a turned hem on pants or the arms of sleeves? What I’m trying to do, but fighting with somewhat is to attach a folded bit of contrasting fabric to encase the bottom of a leg or arm with some piping. How do you get that ring of folded fabric to perfectly match the diameter of the sleeve or the pant leg? Or do I attach it at some other point in the construction process? All of my sweatshop items that have this on them enclose the seam for the leg for a nice clean finish. I was really close on the first, but I still ended up putting in a few puckers. It’ll be okay, but I’d like to learn for future projects. Can anyone recommend a web site or book? So far I have found no mention of such a thing in Sew U, I should pull out my Reader’s Digest book and check there too, but those are the only sewing books I own right now. Even a name for that type of treatment so I can check indexes of books at the library or Google the term would be very helpful!

Here are two views as an example of what I wish to do (click for a larger look):