MonkeyBoots IronMan Jim

I’m going to start this post with the good news.  My grandson had told his mom on several occasions that he wished he had a sock monkey.  As it so happened, I had 1 pair of sock monkey socks in my craft trunk so made it for him.  For the record, I don’t like making sock monkeys.  The sock fabric is too stretchy to be fun to work with, and heaven help you if you need to take a seam out.  That being said, Jack thought he was the nuts (a little monkey humor there). It was all I could do to keep Jack away from the monkey while I was sewing and then while we waited for the little boy to come and get him.

Well, the almost-five-year-old boy LOVED the monkey!  Way more than I could have hoped for.  So much that he gave him 3 names, just like the boy has 3 names.  The monkey’s name is MonkeyBoots IronMan Jim.  Quite the monkier for a little simian, don’t you think?  I liked the humor in making this monkey a vest with another monkey (Julius Junior) on it.

On to other sewing adventures….

I took both my courage and my scissors in hand and cut out the pattern pieces for my pants.

I spent several hours yesterday sewing.  Lessons learned or remembered quickly:

• The handwoven definitely frays more than commercial fabric, so needed some type of seam treatment.
• French seams are tedious and time consuming, not something I was willing to do on these pants.
• Zigzag stitching was ok, but looked pretty ugly.
• Overlock stitch looked better than zigzag, but was better still when I sewed both raw edges together rather than doing them individually.
• I will not sew for money.  Just like I won’t knit for money.  I’ll do it as gifts or for myself, but that’s all.  It’s not one of my favorite activities and I’m not interested in investing the kind of time and attention it needs to have a  professional-looking finished product inside & out.  Don’t think I could get my money back on that kind of time commitment, either.

Ok, so this morning I sewed on the waistband, made the ties, and then could try the pants on for the first time. Lessons learned the hard way:

• Although I’ve never done it and doubt that I’ll start now, it makes a lot of sense to make the pattern out of muslin (or similar) first so you have an idea of fit and can make adjustments as needed.
• Before getting this far, stop and think. Do I own anything similar I can lay on the bed so I can compare shapes and sizes?
• Don’t believe either the measurements or the pictures on the pattern.

When I sewed that vest from my handwoven fabric I made a size medium.  It’s really too small.  You can fudge a bit with a vest, but I sure didn’t want to make that mistake again with the pants.  Plus my actual body measurements were what the pattern called large, so I made the pants large.  Big mistake.

They are SO big that it’s way too much fabric bunched up at my waist, and it sticks out very unattractively in both front and back.  Only at this point did I realize I had been wearing a pair of drawstring waist cotton shorts, so I laid them on the bed to compare sizes.

Those pants are A LOT bigger.

So I went back to the pattern and looked at the photo on the front again.

I realize that model’s probably an extra small, but there’s NO WAY that her pants fit the way mine are cut.  Even if I’d made a medium instead of the large, the legs of my pants are WAY wider than hers, and the drawstring is gathered only slightly at her waist, too.  False advertising!

Now I know I could remove the waistband, take out the side seam pockets, re-cut the fabric, and re-sew.  However I also know that taking out the waistband and the pockets will cause lots of fraying.  While I have enough fabric to cut a whole new waistband, that’s not true for the pockets, and in reality, even it it were true, I know myself well enough to know I wouldn’t do it, and even if I did, I’d end up hating the pants for what they put me through and never wearing them anyway.

So I pinned in some pleats on one side.  Would I like that better?

It’s better, but is it enough better to make them wearable?  Here’s a view of the side without the pinned in pleats.I do know this…I’m not going to make a decision and implement it in time to wear these pants for the show I’ve got this weekend.  I’m also not going to blindly use the top pattern for my planned top; I may not use it at all.

I’m fed up.  I’m tired from lack of sleep.  I’m going to put away the sewing machine, put everything else in a bag or bin, and watch some mindless TV for a while.