Sewing Underthings

I said in my last post that I had been busy making underthings, and I have!  In three evenings and a bit of one afternoon I have made 5 vests for the child, a pair of pants for the child and 7 pairs of pants for me!  Not bad going!  She just asked me if I would ever buy underwear again and I honestly don't know the answer at the moment.  I think while I am able and can make the time I will make my own.  This actually feels fantastic as just over a year ago I was having a mini sewing crisis, the kind where you think nothing you make is any good and there is no point,  whereas yesterday I was wearing 95% homemade (still not ventured into bra making!).

So, pants first!  The pattern is from the very talented Zoe and, as with the Dolores Batwing pattern, I found the PDF very easy to put together with minimal pages.  She also has a vest pattern too and although I have downloaded, printed and stuck this together I was not as in dire need of vests as pants so this can wait until my next foray into underthings.  

I made a trial pair (above) to check the fit and make sure I knew what I was doing, and they fit perfectly!  The elastic is a little (lot!) wonky in places but in all honesty there are not going to be many people looking at my pants, unless I get hit by a bus, so I am not bothered at all.  

For my second pair I tried using bands instead of elastic as I was convinced this would be much quicker and, for me, neater.  The bands I used are too narrow and have a tendency to flip inwards.  Topstitching will fix this when I can be bothered to have the right colour thread in my machine at the right time.  I tried with thicker bands but I am just not happy with the fit or look so I went back to elastic.  Looking back through these pictures makes me want to revisit the narrow bands because they do look neat.

Rather predictably I found that the more I practiced with the elastic, the neater and quicker I got.  They are still not perfect but good enough for me! They are very comfortable.  For time spent making vs. time spent wearing I think these are going to be winners.  I will be adding more homemade pants to my wardrobe but I'm hoping now I've made a few pairs I can just add to them slowly, maybe one pair a month.  Definitely having pants with angry zebras or rainbows on makes me very happy!!  

Next up was vests for the Child.  She is on the cusp of growing out of the vests I bought her two years ago, and they are looking a bit grey around the edges, so it was high time she had new ones.  When she was little all her vests etc. were second hand however second hand vests at this age are generally very worn so don't get passed on.  

I didn't want to buy vests when I am more than capable of making them so I simply traced around one of her existing vests and added length.  She is slim for her age so hasn't grown out of them widthways yet.  The first vest I made as a trial to check the fit then I went ahead and cut out another four.

Ideally I would make all her vests out of old tshirts of mine but I generally wear things to death so only one of these is made out of recycled fabric (a top I grew out of!), something I would like to rectify next time I sew a batch.  I need to start looking in charity shops more with this kind of thing in mind.  For the rest I used some medium weight cream jersey I found on a recent shopping trip to Goldhawk Road.

Out of 1.5m I got four vests, a long sleeved top to wear under her dungalottes and a pair of KitschyCoo's Boy Cut Briefs.  If you ever need to make underwear for children this is definitely the pattern to go for.  These get picked over shop bought pants every day and I have been asked to keep making them so we don't have to buy pants ever, ever, ever!  I don't know how long I can keep my little in homemade stuff before she decides she wants to dress like her friends, but for as long as she asks for me to make stuff, I'll make it!  I just need a tights pattern for children and then everything will be homemade!