Cursed Pants

I need new work pants, but I am afraid to wear the pair I have made.

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Here is the story:

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I bought the fabric at Joann’s one day when I was getting some interfacing. The fabric was on sale, but not a great sale so it was more than I would normally pay for this type of fabric especially since I have a closet full of fabric already. I went ahead and spent the money because I really liked the fabric.

It did not stay in the stash for long before I had it washed and ready to cut out. I got out my pants pattern, which is a very simple pattern, and started to cut. I don’t know what I did wrong in the cutting process, but I measured or cut something incorrectly. One of the back legs was missing about six inches at the bottom of the leg. So, I had to decide at that time if I wanted a seam across the back of the leg or to scrap the pants. Because I had real money and time invested already, I decided on the seam.

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Next, I started to sew everything together. I measured the elastic for the waist and serged it on. I broke two needles in this serging process. Finally with the serging done, I discovered that the elastic was way too big, so I had to unpick all my sewing and serging and do it all over again. It is not that I mind unpicking, but that it is so time consuming. I could have sewn together a whole new pair of pants in the time it took to unpick the serging. I thought about just cutting it off, but I did not want to lose any of the height in the pants at the waist. With the unpicking done and the elastic shortened, I serged the elastic on again and only broken one needle this time. The elastic is much tighter this time, but I think I would like it just a little  tighter, but at the moment, I am unwilling to unpick it all again. Next I hemmed the pants. My mom helped me make my pattern so I know that it is the right length for me, but when I was done and tried them on, the legs were about 2 inches too long. What? That is probably where my cutting error occurred.  So, more unpicking. Why am I not trying these pants on as I go? I know better than this. Now, with paying too much for the fabric, a seam at the back leg, broken needles, and so much unpicking, I am afraid to wear the pants. I can just see it now, I will be at work and the seams will start popping. My only explanation for all this trouble is that the fabric did not spend enough time in the stash and the other pieces in the stash put a curse on it.

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My main reason for not giving up the on the pants is the pockets. I added an extra piece of fabric to the pockets and wanted to see how it turned out. Let me explain. I like to wear my cargo pants to work. That way I have a pocket for keys and money, one for vitamins I forgot to take as I run out the door and one for my phone, as well as extras for this and that. I don’t like to carry the vitamins with the money, or my phone with my keys, and so on. So, when making these pants, I added a dividing piece of fabric at the bottom of the pockets. When I stick something in the pocket, I can put it in front of the divider or in the back, making two pockets in one. This way I can put the vitamins and money in one pocket without them mixing. Plus both sides of the pocket are a good size, not one a tiny coin pocket. When trying the pants on, the pockets seem like they are going to be great and work out really well. It is just the rest of the pants I am worried about. I will let you know how the pockets do and how the pants wear. When I bought the fabric, this pair of pants was supposed to be my favorite pair, but I am not sure about that now.

Speaking of unpicking, I am crocheting around another blanket and truly dislike the results I am getting, so I am going to unravel the whole thing and start again. At least unraveling crocheting it not as time consuming as unpicking serging, but more about the blanket later.

A Ton or None

After bemoaning the fact that we went on vacation and did not buy a single inch of fabric, I more than made up for it on the next trip. Here about 3 weeks ago we had a convention to attend in Southern California and I was able to find my way to M & L Fabric. Upon walking in the front door, I was face to face with a fabulous deal that I just couldn’t pass up.  They had marked a bunch of knits for $1 a yard. They were all heavier knits in dark colors, perfect for the husbands shirts, and I went crazy. I loaded up the cart. When I got done at the cutting table, I had 38 yards of fabric to purchase. I also bought some remnants to make my niece something, along with 10 spools of thread at $0.20 a piece and a pair of scissors for $0.99. I wish I had bought  a couple more pairs of the scissors. When I got home and tried them, they were fairly good scissors and cut well. I sure have a great time at that store, and it is a good thing I don’t live closer to it.

Well, that is the ton. As for the none, we made a fast trip to see the parents on the 4th of July. We traveled over 1300 miles in 2 days. Although I know my Mom had fabric for me to see, we had no time to see it. We were too busy visiting with family and friends, eating hamburgers and tacos and watching fireworks. So, I brought home no fabric from Mom’s, 5 skeins of yarn, but no fabric. I was totally amazed.  I did take Mom a couple of pieces of fabric from my stash that I had decided to part with, so this trip actually had the opposite effects from most of our journeys.

Amigurumi Pattern Books

I really enjoy crocheting amigurumi characters. You probably already figured this out from my previous blogs on them. Recently while shopping around on Amazon, I found a lot of pattern books for amigurumi patterns. I decided to purchase a couple of them and learned that not all patterns or authors are created equal. So, I thought I would give you a review on the two books that I have actually used a pattern from so far.

The original book I purchased and the one I have used the most is Amigurumi World by Ana Paula Rimoli. I loved the patterns in it and the animals made from them. This book has lots of pictures and offers several ideas to help make the animals uniquely yours. The patterns are easy to understand and easy to follow. Amigurumi Two by the same author is available and I have it on my wish list to purchase. I would say that this book is great for everyone, whether this is your first time at amigurumi or you have made many animals before. The only problem I have with this book is that the animals don’t really look like real animals. Although very cute, they are cartoon like in nature as amigurumi are, so depending on the look you want, they may not be the look you want. This brings me to the purchase of my next book, Vanna’s Choice Easy Crochet Critters by Leisure Arts.

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The Easy Crochet Critters book has more realistic animal patterns. The animals are still very cute but most of them stand on four legs. I have completed the alligator. He was easy and fun to put together. The pattern was reasonable easy to follow, and it also has nice pictures to guide you along. I am glad that I started with the Amigurumi World book first. Some of the parts of the patterns assume you understand some basic construction techniques and might be hard to follow if you had not made any amgurumi before.  This does not mean that I will abandon the book, I just don’t think it is good for a beginner. I am going to make the seal and the walrus next and see how they turn out.

I purchased more than just these two books, but I don’t want to pass any judgement on the others until I have crocheted at least one of the patterns from the books. So, stay tuned to see what adventures I have next!

My 100th Blog Post!

Well, for my 100th post on this blog my husband created me a cool graphic text chart (called a wordle) that shows how often I used particular words on here. The bigger the word on the graphic, the more times I used it, down to the smallest words which I used the least.

Very, very cool I thought! .

And it should help me to write better text for this blog in the future knowing what words I use too much and probably need to cut down on using.

I was surprised by which words I did use the most. I expected fabric and stash to be larger, and the word time to be smaller. It must be the phrase “next time….”.