My Sewing Space

Shortly after Christmas, I got into a bit of a pajama-sewing blitz. The pajama options for all three of my kids were pretty bad - way too small, woefully mismatched, etc. Pajamas aren't ever my first choice of things to sew (which is why the situation had gotten so bad) but I found there was a lot that I liked about this round of pajama sewing: The kids were really appreciate of new pajamas and that always makes the time and effort worth it. I find it really easy to leave the perfectionist tendencies behind with pajamas. "Good enough" is the name of the game for details, finishing and fit. Because they're pajamas! Sometimes I feel conflicted when I need to choose between being resourceful and frugal or getting it exactly how I want. Use the serviceable buttons already in the stash or go buy the ideal ones? Does this ready-made piping "go" or should I make my own out of newly-purchased and perfectly coordinating fabric? When it comes to pajamas, the reso...

Back in July one of my aunts passed on some old jeans to me. They were initially headed for another aunt that makes quilts from old jeans, but lucky for me, I was in the right place at the right time. She had three pair of jeans and one pair of shorts passed on by a friend of a friend or something like that (let me be clear - these were not my aunt's jeans!). Now, these were not just any jeans. These are a size 58 waist jeans. We can only hope that the owner of the jeans didn't pass them on because he grew out of them. So, the challenge for me was to come up with some way to refashion these. Let me tell you, there is a lot of fabric in jeans this size. Everything about them is different in scale. The fly is more than 10" long, there are 9 belt loops around the waistband (four more than your average size jeans), and the back pocket is just really, really biiiiiig. The kids were quite intriqued by these big pants, so we had a little fun with them.... I like the thre...