Just one smile?

No? Love you anyway, babe.

WINONA-Wrapping up!

At this time, I turn one pant leg inside out and stuff the pant leg turned right side out into the pant leg turned inside out. I align the crotch and stitch, finish and topstitch the seam.

The apron is comprised of three pieces of material: One front piece you see, a lining for the front and the back piece of the apron.

The front apron piece and the front lining piece are stitched just around the round pocket openings, right sides together. The pieces are turned, pressed and edgestitched along these curved pocket openings. I think I edgestitched twice, once at 3 mm and once at 6 mm, around each pocket opening.

Because the back of the apron may peek out a bit, it is nice to use a material that has an attractive reverse side. This olive drab nylon has a nice reverse side, so it's all good. At this time, I stitch the front of the apron front+lining piece to the back apron piece, right sides together. I finish this seam with an overcast stitch, turn the apron and press the seam. I edgestitch all along this seam at 3 mm.

The apron piece I attach to the pant legs right at the seam allowance.

I did not take any photos of making the waistband! This trousers just takes an elastic casing waistband and goes on something like this. Yeah, I'm not much of an illustrator, but I hope you get the idea.

The strip of waistband material is stitched together at the short ends to form a ring. However, a small gap is left on one half of this stitching line for inserting the elastic.

This ring is stitched to the waistband edge right sides together. The waistband is flipped up, so the right side is seen from the front and pressed. The waistband is pinned to the waist edge wrong side, on the inside of the pants. For a more finished look, this edge is tucked under again before pinning. The waistband is stitched from the right side at 3 mm from the fold edge of the initial seam. This stitching line should catch the inside of the waistband.

The top of the waistband is edgestitched at 3 mm. The elastic is inserted with the aid of a safety pin or bobkin. The elastic is cinched to the desired fit and the ends are secured with a long bar tack. The elastic is tucked into the waistband casing and the small opening is closed with a few straight stitches.

Measure one last time for length, hem the pants and I am done! (Actually, I hemmed before putting on the waistband...whatever...)

And I trimmed that silly piece of thread there...

And the reveal in front of the beloved Orange Inn café in Laguna Beach.

Thank you, Claudia, for the fun, funky and easy WINONA Sassy Pants!

Postcards from California

I walked out my front door early this morning to give whoever was out there with the world's noisiest chain saw a piece of my mind, when I saw that it was not a chainsaw, but a little parade of classic VWs going up my street.


On our walk today, this is what we saw.

This couple was smiling and holding hands. And my heart just melted when they got up and danced: She in her pretty Sunday best and he, well, he has a "Wild Thing" T-shirt.

And this guy? The hat, the shorts, the skateboard, the hair? It's like Lederhosen in Munich. He was even wearing Vans. Seriously, this is a person you'll only see in California. He'd get stopped at the border to Oregon.

I love you, California.

WINONA-Moving right along

Where do we go from here? Let's get the pant leg backs done.

So, what we have here is this big curve. You have the option of pinning carefully all along the curve and stitching. I find that can lead to puckers. What I do is just lay the beginning corners perpendicular to each other for the first stitch. Then I just carefully align the corresponding edges all the way along the curve with my thumb and forefinger while continuing to stitch. Works like a charm.

Before I stitched the two pieces of each pant leg together, I stitched some ric rac ("rick rack"? "ricque racque"?) along the seam allowance of the outer pant leg piece. This is then tucked into the seam for a little extra detail.

I have topstitched all the seams with a nice thick bright green topstitching thread.

Now, it is time for stitching the fronts to the backs at the outseam. For this second pant leg, I removed the initial basting stitches and put in new ones, so that I could ease that middle section to match the back pant leg just perfectly. I got lucky on the first pant leg: My initial gathering happened to fit just fine.

I have pressed the finished outseam toward the back and topstitched.

Now comes the time to lay the inseam edges right sides together and stitch, giving me the completed pant leg. Topstitching the inseam can be done a couple of ways: You may either work the pant leg over the free arm, but that will only get you about half way up the pant leg. In this instance, you'd flip the pant leg around and topstitch over the free arm from the other direction until you meet the initial top stitching line.

Or, you may topstitch this inseam in one fell swoop by scrunching the pant leg behind the presser foot, sort of turning the stitched part of the pant leg inside out as you go. You do not place the pant leg over the free arm, but stitch that little bit that you can. And then scrunch that stitched part behind the presser foot. Stitch-stitch-stitch/scrunch/stitch-stitch-stitch/scrunch/stitch-stitch... Eventually, you'll make it all the way up the pant leg.

WINONA-Day One (but later)

Okay-dokey.

At this time, I stitch together the three sections of the front pant legs. I kind of need to pay attention as to which center piece is which, and which way is up. Other than that, pretty straight forward.

Here, I have gathered the knee pieces before stitching to the upper and lower pant leg pieces. In hindsight, I should have stitched all three sections together and then run the basting stitch along the sides of each of the middle pieces. That way it would have been much easier to ease the pant leg fronts to match the pant leg backs in a later step. So, do as I say, not as I do: Stitch all three sections together, run a basting stitch along the middle pieces and gather later to match the pant leg fronts to the pant leg backs. Alrighty?

And, this is the time to add any trims that should join in the inseam and outseam. No such thing as too many trims.

WINONA-Day One

Winona Day One? I'll post over several days, but this pattern went together so easily, that I finished it up in about three hours. And I am pretty slow, pretty inefficient.

First, I need to decide if I want the apron detail or the side pockets. My girl is eight years old, now, so she might think the apron is a bit babyish. So I ask her opinion and she likes the apron. Goody! But the roomy side pockets are super-duper, too, so I would have been happy either way. I think I will age this look up a bit for a pre-tween in the choice of fabrics. I have this awesome olive drab nylon stuff. I've got to dig through my receipts and find out where I got this, because I want more. It is a thick, water repellant nylon with a brushed underside. Feels softy and smoothy against the skin. It is a material that is used quite a bit for board shorts and just a great material for being at the beach, because it wicks moisture away and dries in an instant. It's also kind of shiny. I like shiny.

This I have paired with a cotton material taken from tea towels from Anthropologie. That I have paired a material that repels water with one designed to absorb water makes perfect sense in my world. Just live in my reality for the moment. I like it here.

And here is a photo of the salad of trims that I thought about including. I'm shooting here for urban/ethnic/retro/vintage/French provincial...I seriously need to stay out of the Anthropologie store.

More tomorrow!

Dog days and kitty pants

I don't think I am the only one who puts things off. Otherwise, FedEx wouldn't even exist. Anyway, I've been procrastinating. On just about everything. I'm assigning blame for my putting off 'til tomorrow to adjusting to the summer routine and having to keep the kids occupied with things sun screen centered and sans screens--computer, video and handheld.

But it's also just jolly ol' procrastination. I have a huge administrative pile from which to dig out my sorry, miserable self. Can you feel my pain? Irreparable hard drive and no back-ups for over a year because I couldn't get the stupid modem on that ancient Windows hunk-o'-junk to talk to the FiOS...no excuse, of course...really, just another procrastination...But you see what I am avoiding. Please, feel my pain, because I don't want to. I'm awarding any and every distraction my utmost attention. 

Here, the girl wore her ZORRA trousers. The ones with the lucky kitties. She still hasn't warmed up to the big girl face ones. We had an errand in Taluca Lake, so a swing by the Farmers' Market on Fairfax for falafel and figs is practically on the way.

On the business end of things, I have WINONA translated and printed and ready to go. WINONA was another victim of IT-misfunctioning procrastinating. But it's off the list, finally. Please place any orders over the shop.

I have a pretty stack of fabrics right here that I should WINONA-ize. I should probably sew-along this. Whatcha think? It would give me something to do besides enter 18 months worth of accounting. I'm up for it.