A month or two ago the Sewcialists announced that they were going to put on a mini challenge over a weekend, and that it was just for fun, so no pressure or anything to join up.
So of course I put a ton of pressure on it.
But in reality, I knew that I didn’t have anything else on my plate that weekend, and that I could probably spend the entire time sewing.
So I did.
The mods announced the challenge on Thursday, so I dutifully took the incredibly entertaining quiz and received the word “Spicy” as inspiration.
Because I am not a spicy person, and spicy food disagrees with me, I thought about what would spice up my wardrobe. I remembered a passing thought I had a few months prior when I was wearing my grey Flints, that it would be awesome if I had some green Flints to change up my wardrobe. And thus, a plan.
I had not yet cut into my lot of rayon-linen blend from Dharma Trading, so I cut off about 2 yards (in hindsight should’ve done a bit more) and prepped to dye the fabric.
Got out: 5 gallon bucket, dye, soda ash fixer, canister of salt, desk chair, wooden spoon, fully charged computer with a show playing.
(My roommate must have thought I was nuts, since this was my first time dyeing fabric since I moved in.)
And I sat and stirred for what felt like hours. And was probably an hour and a half.
Then comes the requisite wash and tumble dry before I could find out what color I actually had was. The suspense was killing me! I used two color catchers on that load, and both came out pretty blue, so I’m glad I used them.
The fabric came out the perfect green. So the next day I ironed (ugh), did some small pattern alterations to fix the weird wrinkles in the back (meh), and cut out the pieces (so wide, so many), and started piecing together the pants. Just like the grey ones, I bias bound every single seam, which did not take up as much time as I thought it would, because by Friday night I was done, excepting hems.
The next day I waffled about the length to hem, so I decided to put some trim on the side, and found this cool black crochet trim in my stash that has little bobbles along the edge. I aligned this with the side seam and sewed it down, and then I hemmed the pants. They’re skimming the ground when I’m in my normal shoes, 1 inch off in my dance heels, and I try not to wear anything flatter.
They got the swing dance seal of approval that night, both with others’ compliments, and how fun they were to dance in. So comfy, so swishy. Just so good.
I’ve found that the fabric has terrible recovery, and the waist will bag out massively as time goes on, but I keep a safety pin in the waistband and adjust as needed.
Secret pajamas for the win!
