Monday madness

I say madness, but it wasn't really mad. Just fun. And a bit cold.

I had arranged for my sister (Aunty Anna) to come to my place this morning so we could venture out into the chilliness to spend some much missed quality time together. Not just the 2 of us, the kidlets were with us too. We went to one of favourite spots (the top of the mountain, or close enough) with a few great Op-shops among other things. It was great! We rarely get to do it now, so when it happens it's nice if the kids cooperate and everyone has a good time. Today was one of those days.

I wasn't really going to post tonight, except that when my assistant came out of her room after getting dressed this morning, she was wearing these pink cord jeans which were so short you could see the tops of her boots. I tried to explain that the top of the mountain was colder than at home and her legs would freeze, but she wouldn't have it. they were the pants she chose to wear and wear them she would, no matter how short and silly they looked. As if anyone else ever has this discussion with a 2 year old. Ugh! Anyway, I thought she should swap pants, but after 15-20 minutes of arguing about it while getting B-man ready, I came up with a plan. Sometimes I'm a little over-ambitious, sometimes it works out...

Where was I? Oh yeah, the plan. The plan was to dive in and find a coordinating fabric in my massive stash (a bit of a struggle for me) and add some to the bottom of the shorty pants. "Surely it can't be too hard" was what I was thinking and I was so right! After deciding on a fabric that looked alright I just laid the pants onto the fabric and chopped a piece that was big enough to make 2 cuffs for the end of the pants. Then I just made two tubes by stitching together the two opposite sides of the pieces, right sides together. Then I folded them wrong sides together so they were shorter tubes with the nice side on the outside and inside, and popped them all the way over the ends of each leg of the pants (folded edge closer to the top of the pants). I lined up the raw edges of the fabric so they were about 1/2 way from the edge of the pants to the top of the hem (so the pants were actually sticking out the bottom). Then I just sewed straight around where the original hem stitching was on each leg. There were a few really thick parts because I didn't bother un-picking or cutting off the hem, but it was ok. So next I turned them down and top-stitched around each leg again about 1/8inch from the seam, this was partly for the look and partly to hold them in place, seeing as the fabric was much thinner than the pants fabric, I didn't want them riding up the legs of the pants.

And that was it. Done! Took about 20 minutes all up. Who doesn't love a quick project?!

I think they look heaps better and I think they'll be worn for another year or so now, which is fantastic for someone stingey like me. My assistant loves them and so do I, so it was well worth giving up some of my precious stash for them.