I wanted to make some corduroy pants for my kids this fall and my son picked out this crazy purple called blackberry.  That was weeks ago. And it’s not like the fabric has been sitting around waiting for me to get to it. I have been working on these pants and his sister’s skirt for a good long while now. First it turns out that a yard and a half will no longer get me two pairs of pants like it used to, so the shorter one got the pants and the taller one had to settle for a skirt (luckily the tall one’s a girl). And then when I really looked at the fabric, though it is corduroy, it’s barely thicker than quilting cotton (damn you Joann’s and your cheap ass fabric) so I thought I’d try to line it. Which I’ve never done. And while we’re at it let’s try flat felled seams because hell I’ve never done those before either. Oh and pockets, they need pockets. All of this added up to my sewing machine permanently living on the dining room table, because I only have 10 minutes here and there to work, and now my hand wheel is covered in peanut butter.  Neither piece turned out great, but I was doing lots of things I didn’t really know how to do and made up the patterns as I went along, so really I shouldn’t be surprised.  Lining is hard. We live in Wisconsin and our winters are super cold, so I would love to line all the clothes I make, but I don’t know how. You would think it would be easy. In the vastness of the craft blog world there must be some “how to line clothes” tutorial . Isn’t there? I know I did the lining for the skirt wrong because it can stand up with no one in it and the ruffles aren’t very ruffly. And the pants lining was a little easier, but the hems were a pain in the butt because they were so thick. So they got warm, if a little half ass, purple clothes. All they care about is the purple, so whatever.

The heart pocket was my friend’s brilliant idea and my daughter loves it. And I love the bright blue stitching that I used on both garments and the buttons she chose. So they weren’t complete failures. Luckily I just bought the book “Carefree Clothes for Girl,” which is beautiful–and has patterns, because I learned I can’t just wing it. And to help with that problem I got “Design It Yourself Clothes: Patermaking simplified” from the library, which I just started to read and it’s awesome. My list of things to make get longer with every new craft book that comes out.

Meet Olaf. He is the answer to the question: “Can this outfit be turned into a soft toy?”  The pants were mine a long time ago and the shirt I picked up at a thrift store for a different project.  I should have taken a picture actually wearing the outfit before I cut it all up, but there was a big, gaping hole in the shirt in a very conspicuous spot. I wasn’t sure if the pants would work, but my trusty little machine sewed through all those layers with just a little pushing on my part (and no swearing!).  All the pockets still work and I may whip up a little polka dotted toy for Olaf to put in a pocket, but he may be to serious for that.