Treasure Pocket Pants

For my first Celebrate the BOY 2013 project I made a pair of Treasure Pocket Pants from Sewing for Boys. I know I say this frequently, but I've been wanting to make a pair of TP Pants for quite some time - since my sweet husband bought me the book after we learned Eli was a boy (this is more indicative of how many future projects I have swimming in my head than of my own procrastination - I'm certain I'm not alone here). The limiting factor with these pants was that the pattern starts at 12-18 months, so I had to be a bit patient. Now that our boy is officially a toddler (and toddling all over the house to prove it) I thought it was the perfect project to kick off these two weeks.




At some point along the road to motherhood I inherited a pair of size one maternity jeans. Elastic cinch-waisted, size one, stretch maternity jeans, to be exact. Now don't get me wrong - a well-fitting, comfortable pair of maternity jeans should be cherished, lived in, then passed on and on to other mamas, because we all know how hard they are to come by. But size one, cinch waist maternity jeans? In my opinion, 'size one' and 'maternity' should never be used in the same sentence, let alone in a pair of jeans. So I had no qualms at all about sacrificing (ahem, transforming) this pair into a new pair of pants for my boy.

For the contrasting fabric I used Oh Deer! by MoMo for Moda Fabrics. My sweet and exceedingly patient (at times) children helped me pick this one out at Crafty Planet, perhaps the best fabric store ever. It is a bit of a drive from our house and as we pulled up I realized I had forgotten the Ergo back at home. Perusing fabrics with a 1 and 3 year old is not usually the kind of torture I would ever wish upon anyone, especially without a baby carrier. So I was grateful for that baggie of cheese (local raw milk gouda for my tiniest of cheese snobs) I had tucked away in my pocket, which I used to lure my son back towards me every time he tried to lunge in a kamikaze dive out of my grip. Somehow we actually made it out with several cute fabrics in tow and without any major tantrums.

While I was working on this project I felt they were taking a long time, especially for a pair of toddler pants. This made me laugh at how much more instantly gratifying sewing is compared to knitting, in which projects can take months to complete. But they are seriously well made. I particularly love the faux-fly and the contrasting fabric hems, which make them look cute and finished whether they are rolled or unrolled. And, of course, I love the pockets, which are true to their name - really perfect for storing little treasures and easy for little hands to access with their elastic openings. In the future I might opt to make them just a little bit deeper.

This project was not without it's problems. Firstly, I didn't go online to download the errata for the pattern prior to cutting out my pieces and was quite puzzled when one of the side panels just didn't seem to be the right size. This was easily remedied when I downloaded a pdf of the revised pattern for that piece. Also, the hem facings in the pattern did not even closely fit my pant legs. I am still confused as to whether this was my mistake or a mistake in the pattern, but I had to remeasure and cut my own hem facings to fit the pants. Again, not a huge deal, but another waste of time and fabric. Has anyone else encountered this? 

And finally, there's the size issue. These pants are HUGE on my boy. I made the 12-18 month size and my 13 month old will probably wear them by the time he goes to college. True, he's just a tad on the smaller size, but really? Again, has me scratching my head wondering where I made a mistake. 

All in all, the pants (assuming Eli grows big enough to wear them at some point) turned out well and are so very cute. I would use the pattern again once I've had some distance from it and my frustrations with it. For now, I'm looking forward to getting started on my next project for Celebrate the BOY!