Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Court Jester: Pants Progress

Costume sewing has commenced! Yesterday I started working on Caleb's pants. I figure this would be the most time consuming part of the costume, and I was right. I worked on this for 5-6 hours yesterday. First, I traced off a pair of his soccer shorts for a pattern, adding about 8" in length.

Next, I cut the diamonds to piece together to make fabric. I tried to think of a way to strip piece this, but couldn't figure it out in my head, so I decided to just cut the diamonds and sew them all together. I cut 4" strips, then laid the 60° mark on the edge to cut an angle. Using that new cut edge, I then placed the 4" mark and cut the diamonds.

I stitched contrasting diamonds together in pairs (and screwed them up at first), and then laid them out on my pattern, so I would only piece as much as I needed. Then I stitched pairs together, and filled in with single diamonds or triangles. I forgot to add a 1/4" seam allowance to one edge of the triangles at first, so I just kinda stretched those to fit a little bit.

Then I did it all over again, only in reverse. I think the second time around went faster and looks better. I used my serger, since the gold frayed a lot.

Done! This is as far as I got yesterday. Today, I will cut these out and stitch them together. As well as finishing these pants, I also hope to finish the other pants (remember, I am making 2 costumes: one for Caleb, and one for his friend).

1 comment:

Ruth said...

You are amazing. And you are a great mommy! The costume is going to be fabulous!