pants

Turns out, when I'm not waxing lyrical about the vagaries of the present moment, or just generally navigating the waters of a small family, a small business, and a medium-sized (yet thoughtful) dog—I am making pants.

Slightly irregular, somewhat whimsical, (sometimes outrageous) pants.

This is not a new phenomenon, I know. It's just that the pile is growing. Someone had to acknowledge it, so it may as well be me. Fessin' up.

It all started when the time came to brave the chain stores I love so much to shop for affordable clothes for my new little one. Surely it couldn't be too hard to find something I'd like. Oh, we can laugh about it now—Emma! Shopping in a big box store! Looking for clothes that fit her multiple ideals!—a real thigh slapper, that one. Hey, I was sleep deprived.

Now, because I worry about a whole lot of things that therefore make my life difficult, I could have increased my shopping suffering by insisting each t-shirt, hat, or pair of shorts meet a specific criteria. You know the drill—ethically made, organic, locally produced, free range, grass fed, solar powered etc. etc. But I didn't. All I asked was that they be reasonably gender neutral. You know, something any child, regardless of sex could wear happily.

I wanted for Tiny what I want for everyone, freedom to become whoever you want to be without having to squeeze every last inch of yourself into either the blue box or the pink box.

Wading through the boys clothing racks of cute-as-a-pie army camouflage pants, shirts endearingly emblazoned with apex predator animals, hunting motifs, trucks and tractors, and sport! sport! sport!, all in the wild colour palette of blue, brown, black and red, I despaired. It's not that I reject all of these things wholesale (except the army camouflage pants) but it's more that the box marked "boy" is so bloody limiting. What if he likes cooking, or reading, or swinging on the swings? What if he likes cats, or Big! Bell Towers!, or looking for worms? What if he likes throwing rocks in the river or jumping on the bed? What if his favourite colour is pink? What, I asked myself, if he is an innocent and can wait for the hyper-masculinised world of "real men" until he, and I, can no longer avoid it?

And so I make pants.

Odd ones. Whimsical ones. Outrageous ones. Classy ones.*

Soon he may want a black football shirt with a bear holding a gun on it. We'll cross that shaky, swinging bridge when we get there. But for now he can be the life-loving, eclectic little guy that he is.

With the pants to match.

* Some of these are pyjama pants. I don't intentionally dress him as a circus clown when we are gadding out and about.

challenges 4 & 5

When I logged on to post the sewing feats of the day yesterday, I found that Blogger was down and in "read-only" mode. It stayed that way until this afternoon by which time I, and many other bloggers, had said enough choice words to their computer screens that the combined frustrated energy could have powered a small suburb for a day. Nonetheless, we're back and all is again well with the world.
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You know, I don’t know what I hate more – shopping for Tiny’s clothes or making them. I can see, for the startled blog reader, that this may represent a bit of an anomaly given my general attraction to making stuff by hand, but it’s true. As I stooped over the ironing board last night, back aching, pinning up a hem, I thought bluntly to myself, “Really, Emma, this is not just boring but it’s painful. Painfully boring.” To which I nodded resignedly, pondering the ramifications of ‘fessing up to this - on the blog - at the end of a week dedicated purely to sewing stuff for the littlies.

Ironically, as I worked away, muttering under my breath, these pants came together more quickly and more easily than anything I’ve embarked on for a while. They are the same pattern as Wednesday’s only smaller, and I started them at 8.30pm last night and was finished by shortly after 9.30pm. Quite the thing, really, although I was too busy grumbling to truly appreciate it.

Despite my ill humour, Teddy graciously agreed to model them for the camera. I should take a lesson in cheerful forbearance from him, actually. Despite pulling his pants up egregiously high under his armpits, he didn’t once utter a word of complaint. Good ol’ Teddy.

Although I think he’s plotting his escape here.

As for today’s effort, I’m afraid I have nothing to show for it. As I lay next to Tiny tonight, demonstrating what it looks like to close your eyes and drift peacefully off to sleep (he seemed to need a little reminder), I plotted all kinds of quick projects with wild fabric combinations that could serve as my final project for the Kid’s Clothing Week Challenge. However, the bit where you actually have to close your eyes (to give full effect to the toddler you are convincing to go to sleep) meant that I spent a bit too much time “demonstrating” and not enough time tiptoeing out of the room and Getting On With Things. Now I’ve run out of oomph and time, so I think we’ll just have to call it a day for KCWC and be proud that Tiny’s wardrobe is now two pairs of pants and one sharp vest larger.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

challenge 3

They're big.  They're baggy.  They have funky detail.  And, most importantly, they're finished.  What more could you ask for?  (He'll also be wearing them until high school they've got so much growing room in them.) 

As my first attempt, I love them.  Although, I don't love the process of making them as much as I'd like.  The truth of the matter is that I'm slow.  I'm a slow sewist (or sewer, as the case may be, but that would be wrong).  I put it down to being self taught and ill-practiced; a reasonable excuse which I'll be sticking to throughout.  That said, it took me much longer than an hour to "whip" these up today.  Luckily I had extra time up my sleeve, otherwise, we'd still be admiring images of pins, patterns and half-sewn pants on Friday.  Perhaps it will get easier with the next pair.  Let's just say I won't be opening a little market stall for funky boy pants anytime soon.

Nonetheless, ta da!

 

Now.  On to the next fashion item for the week.

challenge 2

So.  This is as far as I got with my hour today.

These are the pants that will go with the pocket that was sewn onto the vest yesterday.

To be honest, it may not have been a full hour.  It may have taken me a little while to settle into the task after putting Tiny down for his afternoon nap.  Things take longer to set up when you have to tiptoe up and down the hallway, hoping each floorboard creak isn't followed shortly after by a quiet but definitely awake "Da."  However, after much cutting out, sticking together and pinning, we are set to go for tomorrow.  The pattern is this one and will hopefully give Tiny's little cloth-nappied bottom room to wriggle.

After bemoaning the state of boy's clothes yesterday, I was excited (and a little humbled) to see what others are making for this Kid's Clothing Week Challenge.  It seems there are plenty of others out there who want to dress their boys in a broader range of clothes and styles.  Take a peek at the Flickr pool, some of it is quite inspired.

challenge

Of all the tasks a new mother has to learn, dressing your little one is surely one of the easier and least requiring of Parenting Books or urgent Google searches late at night.  Sure, for the slave to fashion, dressing your child may have a weight to it that others don't carry but, for most of us, finding something that is clean and that doesn't clash too wildly with the furniture feels generally like a step in the right direction when preparing your child for the day's activities.  And so it is with Tiny and me.

Except that I have a small aversion to almost all boys clothes commercially available.

I know, I know; I always have to make everything so difficult.  It's just that they are either boring, obsessed with sports, armies, trucks or dogs, or come in navy blue and red.  Or brown and orange.  Whatever the colours, the general message seems to be that little boys are really just Little Men and therefore should be dressed accordingly.  I'll save my gender analysis of this for another day (you lucky, lucky people) but suffice it to say, I've long looked for alternatives to these clothes for Tiny, but to little avail.

So, I have secretly been harbouring a desire to make his clothes.  I dream of the time when I am Very Organised and take a little time in each day to craft him somethings wonderful; little somethings that could assuage my frayed, boy-clothes-shopping spirits.  In my imaginings, I come up with fun and funky outfits that are neither too Manly nor too cutesy, and that are neither too fussy nor too conservatively boring.  What these outfits look like in reality, though, I can never quite get to.  It seems my programming in what boys should wear is as strong as everyone else's.

However, today I have taken up the challenge to at least have a wee stab at it.  I'll be joining Elsie Marley and 300-odd other makers/sewists/crafters in the Kids Clothes Week Challenge.  The challenge is to take an hour a day for a week to make things for your kids (and then blog about it if you feel so inclined).  I think I can manage that.

I am easing myself into such a challenge gently today.  I am hoping that this does not disqualify me at the outset but today I began by finishing a piece that has been waiting a while for its final touches - the Grandpa Vest.  As previously discussed, it needed a little something to finish it off and today I decided that little something would be a wee pocket.  For putting his pipe in.  Or rocks, as the case may be.  He is only 18-months-old after all.

Next cab off the rank is a pair of matching pants.  Let's see how productive tomorrow's hour will be.

PS:  Yes, I am aware that making a "grandpa vest" and putting a pocket with stripes of charcoal grey, blue and red on it hardly subverts the Manly boys clothing I poo-pooed in previous paragraphs.  I am nothing if not inconsistent, it seems.  Sometimes.

squares

This is what I did today instead of cleaning the bathroom.

No Rage Sewing today, more like Rebellion Sewing.

This is a little project I am cooking up to try and creatively solve a rather chilly problem we have.  More when it is finished.

irrits

See these, right.

Well - after a wakeful night, and  the dog escaping, and then Tiny learning a few new, highly inappropriate words from his mother, and then freezing myself and my little boy to the bone in the sub-Arctic windscape that is the dog park, and then listening to him shouty complain all around the shop for an hour, and then watching him spit out his nutritious and delicious lunch one mouthful at a time, and then banging my head on the upper cupboard corner, and then taking three toes out on the door frame - I made this.

To place my little tootsies on when I do these (47 times a day).

This may well be my first recorded effort at Rage Sewing (not Sewing Rage, which is a different affliction to be discussed on another occasion).

Phew.

That feels better.

vest

For a long time now, my blog subtitle has read "See Emma Sew (and Stuff)."  As you all know, lately there's been a whole lot of "stuff" and not a lot of "sew."  Well hold on to your hats everyone, there's been a creation at Chez Furrybees!

This is officially the first item of clothing I have made for the Tiny one.  Oh, I've had dreams, and plenty of them.  I even have a little stash of fabric that fills the corner of my cutting table waiting for all manner of groovy, one-off, cool-kid clothing items to come to life.  However, this one just about made itself the other day while I was fiddling with some felted sweaters and I felt I couldn't ignore its simplicity and ease.

All winter (and even fall), I have wanted to make Tiny a vest.  Something classic that would have been at home on a portly gentleman of the 1950s (and so would therefore look completely adorable and not a little entertaining on a 15-month-old).  Like this one, perhaps.  However, all great patterns, it seems, require one to be a knitter (not me) and not a crocheter (me) and so it wasn't meant to be.

However, the beauty of felting old, thrifted sweaters, is that you get to do what you like with someone else's knitting (or some machine's knitting) in a tenth of the time with oodles of margin for making mistakes.  So I just cut and trimmed and shaped and sewed a few sides and buttons and - voila! - a little man's sweater.  I have been going back and forth between whether the unfinished edges are, well, edgy, or just unfinished and require a little something.  I'm going with cool and edgy at the moment but will update accordingly if I change my mind.

Tiny loves it, or the buttons, more precisely, and spent quite a lot of time pointing at them and then trying to put them in his mouth.  I think it's a hit, raw edges or no.

PS:  The model was given unfettered access to the buttons, knobs and levers on the Highly Coveted And Longed For (Daily) sewing machine so that the photo shoot could go smoothly.  No little fingers were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Sharing Christmas VI

With a new love and life partner comes a new family. This was the first Christmas with a whole new set of kidlings to think about and make things for - a three-year-old and two four-and-a-half-year olds. Emboldened by my capacity to draft a pattern from my own brain (see moose below), I embarked on my most ambitious project yet - Petunia the Possum.


Isn't she sweet? She is, of course, a ring-tailed possum.


She is made out of a grey flannelet bedspread and a pink stripey cotton shirt that I thrifted from the local Salvos (Salvation Army store). As a result she was extra soft and cuddle-able. Like all possums she is nocturnal (and thus sleepy during the day) but her pink painted toenails hint at a wilder side come nightfall.

Sharing Christmas IV

And the Christmas craft party continues!

With a new sense of purpose in the world (making Christmas presents) I found myself springing out of bed, my mind filled with the tasks for the day ahead. On one particular morning, I heeded the gentle hint of an aunt, and made my cousin her first furrybees handmade gift.


When I showed this wee bunny to a friend she giggled at it being condemned to this facial expression for the rest of its life. I don't know, a kind of vacant cheerfulness might be rather pleasant. Irking to everyone you come across after a while, but pleasant.


I was particularly chuffed with her tail. While I may have contributed to the considerable diaspora of wee bunnies made possible by the whimsical Wee Wonderfuls' pattern, I made use of the steep learning curve that is the world of craft blogs and used my new found knowledge of felting wool jumpers (or sweaters, as they say here - not that you do much sweating in them at minus 10) and used the ribbed sleeve cuff of a purple felted jumper. (Inspiration courtesy of Bitter Betty.)