2015-January: Pink Flower Pants

My next pair of pants for E!  I used the Parsley Pants pattern from Made By Rae, only I made it out of knits.  It was a great pattern, but SO LONG in the legs!  I sneakily hemmed them so I could lengthen them easily in the future, but no thanks to cruddy fabric, these also wore out before their time.

Sorry about the sideways photo -- I just don't have it in me to rotate it right now.  I think Blogger should make that an easy option, don't you?

And I know, in the time I spent typing this caption about not rotating the photo, I could have rotated the photo.  Such is life!

Pic of the superlong legs and the ribbon tag I put to mark the back.  That is a very handy thing, the tag in the back!  Helps little ones get dressed!

E. loved these pants.  She wore them into the ground!  The problem area was the seam on the back, by the butt.  It quickly developed ever-growing holes all along the seam, where the stitches were. (She still wore them, holes and all, until I quietly "retired" the pants one day!)  It's sad, because she could have gotten much more use out of them, had they not fallen apart.

I didn't like the tutorial's advice to spread the seam allowance out to each side and then sew it down.  I think this actually made a weaker seam, because in everyday play, that middle seam was under even more strain.  Maybe I'm explaining it poorly.  I think that a "flat fell seam" or just knocking the entire seam allowance to one side and then sewing that down (topstitiching) is sturdier.

But then again, I used (what I now know to be) poor quality fabric.  Or maybe too big a needle?

Anyway, it was a great experience with the pattern, and I've used it on a couple other pairs of pants/shorts. In future posts I will tell you about how laughably small the Parsley Pants pattern is when made with wovens!!  I still like it a lot, but my 5-year-old wears a "size 10" according to the pattern.  More to come!

***Update!  The Parsley Pants pattern is not small!  Read this!!