Finally! A Sweater Pants Tutorial

It's happening.  I'm bringing my sweater pants sewing technique to the masses.  (Okay, maybe not "masses", but like, 4 people.  Still.)

You'd be excited by these, wouldn't you?:

Before we start, here are the Four Horses of the Sweaterpants Apocolypse:

1.  Pin, pin, pin.  It it isn't pinning right, it isn't going to sew right.

2.  It's sweater you're sewing, so go slowwww.  If you've got a ballpoint needle, you should use it.

3.  Use a long stitch so your waist will have give.  By long, I don't mean basting stitch of course, but like, longer than average.

4.  Do not fear.  Sweater pants can smell fear.  If they smell your fear, you will make a Thneed.


(Also: for your entertainment, I will occasionally use my expansive knowledge of rap, hip-hop and lite rock lyrics to guide you along through this journey.  You are welcome.)

Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin.-- House of Pain

I like big butts(eams) and I cannot lie-- Sir-Mix-A-Lot

Tuuurn arouunnd...-- Bonnie Tyler

Cut bitch, camera off, real shit blastin'-- Eve

I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it-- Missy Elliott

Baby what a big surprise.  Right before my very eyes-- Chicago

Pin that crotch seam one mooore time.  Once is never enough-- Captain and Tenille

Knowin'...that you LIED, straight-faced, while I cried-- Rod Stewart

Smack it up, flip it, rub it down- Oh nooooo-- Bel Biv Devoe

I got nothing here, folks, but a sudden revelation: what does it mean that our American songbook is so anemic when it comes to turtlenecks.  SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.

Back, front back, fr-front back, ft-front back, side-to-side-- T.I.

I got it mastered man, in the hood I'm like plastic, man.  Stretch. -- 50 Cent

Did you ever know that you're my heeeeero?-- Bette Midler

Bring it, cute face.

Bobblehead Loves His Striped Pants

This is really pushing the limits of correct human proportions and I would say that, despite the mathematical impossibility of this child's head size, he is one lethally cute little sir.  In the yellow and gray sweater pants I whipped up.  You own those pants, Griffy.

My babies are 1.  As every friend and acquaintance has observed over roughly the last two weeks, I " have survived".  Parts of me have, yes, though parts of me have been temporarily (I hope) subsumed into the Coiled Snake of Bitchery that is Post-partum Depression.  I'm digging out finally though, now that I actually admitted that I have it.  Have had it.  Continue to have it.  Need to get rid of it. 

I won't go into it too much here, but post-partum depression is a sneaky, evil thing to have.  All this time I just thought many bad things about myself.  That I am an inferior mother, wife and person.  That my pain and rage is a selfish matter made of kicking and screaming that my previously over-indulgent and spoiled existence has been interrupted.   But I think suddenly, thankfully, that I get it.   And it's serious and terrible, and there's a new sheriff in town and that shit is on its way out.  NOW. 

I'd love to go on, but this is mostly my creative blog, so I won't because it could get weird.  I kind of wish I had more of a mom blog because I would love to bust that crazy bullshit wide open and say exactly what its like and talk to other moms who have gone through it.  Suffice to say, if anyone reading has been through it, I feel you, girl.  Yuck.

Alas, we have survived, haven't we.  We had a lovely birthday party and I made a quilted "AND", which was fairly speaking, one of the most satisfying micro-projects ever to grace the sewing table.  I don't know why, but it just made me laugh.

 

Our fella and his mom:

Our ladybaby on her special day:

 Happy Birthday adorable little people of mine.  I love you and I promise I am back to you after this brief recent absence of heart.

I Totally Want a Pair of These Cashmere Pants

But my butt is too big.  It would never work.  And, in the words of Dr. Suess: "In an mere ten paces, there would pills in very unsightly places!" Oh well.  I'll just keep making them for bebes.

Because HELLO, so cozy!

 

I learned something very important making these.  That if a pattern is well designed (and this mother better be- you may recall 2011 Battle of the Frontal Butt), that it will be great on a few different baby body types.  I originally created this 12-18 month pants pattern for Phinny when she was shooting up and slimming down.  I haven't changed it here.  (Yes, my not-yet-5 month old son wears 12-18).  I just made sure the waistband was ample for chubs, and let them be long so he can grow into them.  I think that even with the extra length they look right.  I am pleased.

Non-Flattering Suit Fat Baby Boy

My wife always says, "Babies are so fat, they should wear more black."  TOTALLY TRUE, HONEY.  Well, two of our three babies have gone through an adorable pudgy phase.  In both cases I have, of course, chosen to accentuate thier portly proportions.  As in this one-piece I just made for Griffin from an old sweater.  I'm trying these new plastic snaps that I got from JoAnns.  (I really hate saying or typing "JoAnn's".) They are cute, and they come in a good sized pack for cheap, but they are too hard to snap and unsnap so I'm always afraid they'll pop off, which they certainly will at some point. At least they are destined to tear the knit.

I will post a picture of portly in this outfit soon, hopefully.

 

Here, I resected the old collar onto the raw edge of the new jumper.  Not bad, huh! I used a blind hem stitch, but not a blind hem foot.  For some reason, my foot is designed such that the needle slams into it and breaks and almost pokes out my eyeballs with flying shards of evil.  I guess the obvious explanation would be that it's the wrong foot for the machine, but I swear I've used it before with no trouble, and I can't remember what was different.

God Gave Me a Red-Haired Child To Dress in Chartreuse

To be fair, the leg warmers are a little more lime than the AMAZING chartreuse cords, but I think they count.  It's pretty much a medicatable condition I have, my newfound compulsion toward chartreuse clothing.  I'ma go with it though.

Evanston: freezing.  "Hey, before you go out, let me whip up some leg warmers for Phinny."  My wife, shifting impatiently from one foot to another while I craft these cableknit quickies.  Well, guess what, one slice with the rotary cutter, two zips through the serger, WAH-LAH!  She barely had time to get annoyed.  It was really less than like 60 seconds.  And now look how attractive and useful:

Why Knit Pants on a Day Like This

Well, because I was sooooo busy freaking out over having twins chiles in my belly that I have gotten really behind on some things.  I explained before how I was on a hiatus from sewing after all grief and drama here in my house/ heart, but as I emerged, I managed to put a few things together. 

I did in fact have some wares up on Supermarket like I said I would- it wasn't an unkept promise!  I just never announced it because I done sold a few things then didn't get anymore up there, so it kept feeling too anemic to make a real broadcast about shop being open.

But you know what?   You should check out the site anyway, it is the sane person's version of Etsy (which in my opinion quickly become a tragic wasteland of badly made crud and a truly endless dumping ground of multiple listing mayhem). 

Supermarket

So have a look, I posted these re-purposed knit pants and bibs in the winter:

 

 

They are all either 100% cotton for lighter weather, or cashmere.  Ooooh, cozy.  Phinny wore some about every day of winter and into spring (which as you may know, on the north shore of Chicago, was the same as winter).  Now it's hot as balls.  A pregnant chick can't win.

Okay, well you know what?  Let's look on the bright side.  There was an opportunity for several attractive fashions late into the season and a few of the days, it turned out that Phinny was in head-to-toe homemade, or almost.  I can already envision her teenage eye-rolling while looking back at pictures.   But you know what?!  I never had a perm or super giant eyeglasses that she'll be able to make fun of, so the embarrassments will be confined to pictures of her.  And that's only half as embarrassing as her being embarrassed of both us.  See?  Looking at the bright side.  See here, a couple of sweet freezing spring looks:

Oh and I have a finalized bib pattern that I made a big batch from- those on sale there too:

There, now I feel better.

Oh Simon...

Sometimes you meet a baby boy whose name is Simon.  And he is so little and lovely and precious, you just need to run home and start making very tiny little things for him to wear.  Yesterday afternoon's bounty- headed to my new little muse tomorrow:

Old sweaters, old t-shirts, naturally.

Time For Sweater Pants, YES!

My baby got blown down yesterday.  Like, actually blown over from the wind here.  Twice.  Luckily, I was spotting her, so she didn't go all the way down, but still!  Skeery.  So we went inside and made these sweater pants to start preparing her for harsher times. 

And my serger now actually works which has changed my life.  I took it to the shop and the guy looked at me, all not wanting to embarass me and told me, "Yeah, this happens with a lot of beginners, which is that your thread just isn't pulled into your tension knob at all up here at the top..."

WHAT?  An year and half of being tangled up and cursing my way through every battle with that thing and my thread just wasn't in the tension knob?  If you know about a serger, you know they are notoriously complicated and I thought I was all big in my britches because I could thread it correctly.  It's like brain surgery, what with having to use tweezers and everything.  Looks like this:

 
So, I had all that worked out and then found out my thread just wasn't nesting down into the tension guide at the top of the machine.  Seriously, the hours lost!


But we've conquered, and I made these:

See here, my expert serging technique.  HA!

 

For once, someone could look at the inside of something I've sewn and it would actually look finished and sewn correctly.  Here's to Firsts.