I'm happy to introduce Diane of from blank pages... as part of our shorts on the line sew along. Diane is an extremely talented quilter and all around crafty gal. I adore this quilt and these activity books are brilliant. For all you quilters out there be sure to check out her patterns on Craftsy. This evening Diane is going to share how she went out of her quilting comfort zone to create a really cute pair of capris for her daughter.
Hi! I am Diane and I am so excited to be here with Carla at Small & Friendly today! I blog over at from blank pages..., and as of late I mostly spend my time quilting, but really love working on anything and everything I can get my hands on and find the time to do. I'd love it if you stopped by to say hi sometime!
I was so excited when Rachael invited me to be a part of Shorts on the Line. I had just barely finished making two pairs of leggings for my 1 year old and thought, "Yeah! I can totally make some shorts! Easy peasy." Then the event began and I saw everyone else's shorts. It made me wonder, "What am I doing here among all of these talented seamstresses???" lol. Nonetheless, I am so happy to be here and hope I am finding myself in good company with other newbies out there. I love every opportunity I can get to learn how to do something new with others! Preparing my shorts for this event, I played around with a few different patterns as well as a collaboration of "make your own patterns". I LOVE anything that is "make your own pattern" because I love the freedom of being able to tweak things the way I want them. I am not going to share with you my pattern because there are already so many great patterns out there (that are WAY better than mine, plus mine could use some improvements), and besides, this whole Shorts on the Line event is chuck full of amazing patterns! Instead I'm going to share with you a few things I learned while making my own made-up pattern, and hopefully help you to not make the same mistakes I did. It'll be more of a Here's-what-to-pay-attention-to-while-making-your-pattern type of tutorial. (kind of obvious stuff, but hopefully it will help someone. I know it would have helped me.)
I started out with these cute red knit pants that my daughter has. I really love the flair on the bottom of the legs (which don't show up in the above picture) and wanted to incorporate that into some capris. She still falls a bit, so I wanted her to have something that would still protect her little knees, but also be cool for summer. I'm not going to go into all the steps, as others already have done so, but so you can get the gist of what I did, here are a few shots to show you:
I traced around the red pants on some tracing paper. Then instead of just cutting off the bottom of them to make them shorter, I folded the pattern in the middle of the leg to keep the flair. Next I traced that pattern onto some new paper to have the capris pattern. I didn't add the seam allowance to the pattern, so I added it to the fabric as I transferred the pattern in preparation to cutting.
After I cut out the pattern pieces, I altered the pieces that would end up in the front. I cut off a little bit of the curve from what would become the front seam so there wouldn't be a pouffy spot there. And I also trimmed down the top so that they would be lower in the front. (*Make sure that you lower them towards what will be the center of the shorts, and not the side seams.) The third picture is the front pieces on top of the back pieces. I sewed all the pieces together, made a casing at the top for the elastic and did a rolled hem for the bottom of the legs. Here's how they look on my little M:
And here is what I learned:
- cotton is not the same as knit. I traced a knit pair of pants, which stretch in every direction. Trying to put the finished capris on little M is a bit snug, and if her thighs get any bigger they might be impossible to get on. = put in a zipper, or make them extra roomy to fit over those snug sections. or just stick with knit.
- I wish I hadn't added so much extra fabric at the top of the pattern for the casing. They come up pretty high on her belly. = If your baby's name is Steve Urkel you can ignore this, but otherwise, take note and don't add too much extra fabric at the top. A little extra measuring probably could have prevented this (see note below.)
- I think this mostly has to do with making my pants in cotton instead of a knit, but they are a little tight around her thighs, and if they sag at all, they do reduce her movement when walking. Kind of like when you are wearing a really tight skirt and you can only take mini steps. But a snug elastic helps hold them up and does eliminate this concern (though that also means she won't be wearing these with a onsie *see above). She also does have big thighs, but in the future I will watch for any tapering around the thighs and give her a little extra room = another reminder that patterns are not always one size fits all!
- I have this awesome rolled hem foot for my sewing machine that I was excited to use. I learned the hard way that if you have a seam that you are trying to roll, it's not going to fit through the foot. I ended up rolling them by hand which was not a big deal.
- Don't make clothes for your child when they are asleep and you can't measure them. :) That's what I did, and I could have brought down the front a lot more, as well as made the length a bit shorter than they ended up being. (as well as fixed a few problems from above.)
- Don't worry about what they look like! A few people have told me to sew all the baby clothes I can! It's a great way to get used to sewing clothes, and they are going to be more than happy to wear whatever you make no matter how they turn out. These are definitely not designer capris, (and every time I showed them to my husband while I was making them his comment was, "haha. those are funny. ... they will be cute." Thanks babe!) but I made them anyway and I think a bit of the satisfaction that comes from that makes me like them more than I probably would otherwise. And even though they might be a little tight in areas, little M hasn't complained one bit! ;) She even wore them to the park the other day!
To sum it up, sewing clothes is not like the quilting that I'm used it. This definitely pushed me out of my sewing comfort zone, but if I can sew something wearable, ANYONE can! So meet that intimidation face to face and tell it whose boss! and don't forget to link up your creations in the flickr group so we can all see what amazing shorts you come up with! :) I will be sharing my other shorts creations on my blog in the near future. I hope you'll come stop by and see how they turned out and check out my progress in my clothes sewing skills. A huge thank you to Carla again for letting me make an appearance on your awesome blog! and for letting me participate in this awesome event! 
Thanks so much for sharing Diane! I think they came out super cute and I hope you continue to sew for your little ones.
