Trousers

I have had an old pair of my trousers languishing for some time in a drawer waiting for me to do something with them.  I mentioned this drawer last month.  They were worn out completely on the seat but the material everywhere else was fine, I was loathe to throw them away.  They came to may attention again when I was hunting for the trousers to make the coasters I posted about recently.  I wondered if I could make a pair of trousers for Alice*, not being a sewer who follows patterns I made it up as I went along.

First up I laid a pair of her trousers on top of mine and cut straight across the fabric two and half inches above the top of the waist line of the smaller pair.  The two and half inches is the allowance I made for the waistband.  This gave me two tubes of fabric.

I then measured from the crutch to the bottom hem on Alice's trousers, measured this on one of the tubes and turning it inside out cut the seam from the top to that point, repeat for the other leg/tube.

Turn one leg/tube the right way out and insert this tube inside the one that is still inside out and pin round the seams that you have just cut (they should be right sides together) and sew.

Then I created a waistline.  Unfortunately my two and half inch allowance had taken me into slightly into the crutch of the original trousers so I didn't have the two and half inches I needed for the waistband.  As these trousers are going to worn for messy outside play in winter I wasn't too precious about how they looked.  Ideally I would have liked to have folded (wrong sides together) a half inch first and then a further inch to create a neatly seamed tube for the elastic to be inserted into.  I just folded the material over and sewed a seam to give me a one inch tube into which I inserted the elastic.

The important thing is that they fit!  An easy pair of trousers.

I have been sewing up a storm this week as I finished off the coasters that I had waiting patiently in a pile, I now have six and I sewed up another skirt for Alice using this lovely tutorial.

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* I have decided to give my children names on this blog rather than youngest and eldest, these are not their given names.  My eldest henceforth will be Cameron.

Repurposing

I have an old chest of drawers that used to belong to my granparents, it has deep wide drawers which are hopeless for keeping clothes in.  You always want/need what is at the bottom back corner.  We I use it for storage.  The top drawer is full of first aid supplies, a hangover from my time as an outdoor instructor I never go anywhere without a first aid kit which needs constantly resupplying..................

Of the other two drawers one has yarn it, mostly ends of balls from past projects and a few skeins patiently waiting to be knitted.  The other is full of material, again pieces left from projects, or pieces acquired/given to me that have already been made into something but would be perfect to be made into something else someday.  There is also a small pile of old clothes beyond repair that are, the could be used to make something one day pile.  One piece is a pair of old linen trousers of mine worn for years but now completely worn through on the seat and rather grubby I noticed when I got them out to have a good look at them recently.

I have been wanting to make some mats to put hot drinks on for a while now, we have a few round cork ones that look like a mouse has had a good chew at, they haven't I don't think but I wouldn't put it past those mice that moved in a couple of years ago.  We also have a few old CDs that do a serviceable job but they have a hole in the middle which means that a small part of the surface they are on still gets hot, one of our tables does not like this.  So I had some linen and an idea and this is what I came up with................

I had no template and so kind of guessed based on the one square mat we own.  They have a section of towel in the middle to provide the padding.  The towel is an old stained one that had been relegated to the mopping up messes pile.  As the linen was a pale colour I thought they would look good with an appliquéd shape on them, I went for an apple but you could sew anything you fancy, a circle, a leaf, maybe?  If you don't fancy applique you could just miss that part out and make them from some patterned material.

So I cut two squares, from the linen and one from the towel. The first two I made were 4" squares, the third a 5" square.  I sewed the appliqué shape to one of the linen squares.  Then I placed the linen squares right sides together with the towel square on top, pinned them and sewed around 7/8ths of the edges leaving a 1/8 of a side unsewn.  I turned it the right way out through the hole and hand sewed the edge up.  Voila a mat.  I now have three, in three different sizes it would seem.............

I have cut some squares to make some more they are patiently waiting on a shelf.