Small fry skinnies, racer shorts and two popovers

My toddlers’ Spring/Summer wardrobe is off to a good start.  This week I sewed a popover dress,

a popover top, that I haven’t hemmed yet because I’m waiting until closer to spring,

a pair of racer shorts,

and small fry skinny pants!

I’d never made these pants before.  I made a long version of kid shorts that looked like gaucho pants!  These look much cooler on a kid but take significantly longer.  It was fun, though time consuming.  There are 16 total pattern pieces, some of which are duplicates or mirror images but still a lot of pieces to sew together.  I used the FREE two year old pattern and tutorial on the Titchy Threads website.  It is not a beginner pattern.  Most of the tutorial was easy to follow.  I only had a few, “What!?” moments, usually because the tutorial is for boys pants and she says to reverse everything for girls pants.  Also it takes longer if you do topstitching because you are changing threads and needles frequently.  I also had never done topstitching with topstitching thread and needle before.  I couldn’t find a twin topstitching needle at my local Joanns, so used a regular one, which was very hard to thread and would get jammed when the thread had difficulty going through the eye smoothly once the machine was stitching.  Lesson learned (again), use the correct needle and thread!  So after it got stuck again I switched to a single topstitching needle and sewed the two lines separately.  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.  The twin needle with the incorrect sized eyes had bad stitching anyway.  That was also my first time using a twin needle.  I followed the directions listed in my machine instruction manual and it went ok.

The pants have front and back pockets, a half fly, and an adjustable elastic waistband in the back.  I used a snap in the front and sewed a button for looks.  The Joanns near me only had buttonhole elastic in black, which would show through so I haven’t added that yet.

I would make these pants again if I had a fabric I thought would be REALLY cool in pants, otherwise I’m probably buying pants for the girls.  As I type this, I’m already thinking about the next pair of pants to sew….so I guess there’s something about this pattern!

Next up is a bubble skirt for January Project Run & Play challenge.