Christmas Corduroys

After being a stay at home mom for 7 years, I am back to work full time - and have been for the last six months.  I love this new phase of my life, but it has left little time for sewing.  I have some New Year Resolutions regarding that, but that is for another post.

I usually have a plethora of Christmas projects and gifts to sew, but this year I simply do not have time.  I am, however, sewing one Christmas gift (well, two actually - it is an outfit) for my son - who, alas, is growing at an alarming rate and will soon be too large to sew the cute clothes in my favorite children's sewing magazine - Ottobre Design.

Ottobre hit it out of the park with cute boy designs in their latest issue.





 I am making my son the red corduroy jeans and chevron style multi-colored sweatshirt on pages 18-19.








The whole outfit is darling, but I especially love the corduroys.  The have a curved leg seam and some completely awesome back pockets - not to mention fabulous top stitching.  Ottobre designers are so very clever and creative.

I'm taking this project in steps - doing a little each night - so I don't end up in a panic on Christmas Eve.  I'm also taking notes and developing a plan to make me a more organized and effective sewer along the way.

Here's the pre-work that's been done:

• Pre-washed and ironed fabric
• traced pattern and added seam allowances
• cut pattern out of fabric and added all markings
• Threaded up serger and tested on fabric
• threaded up sewing machine and wound bobbins of sewing thread and top stitching thread
• Tested top stitch length setting (both cross-wise and length-wise as it will look different on the corduroy because of the nap)

I've noticed on ready-to-wear jeans that the top stitching is a much longer stitch length than the standard 2.5mm length that my home-ec teacher drilled into my head.  I decided that my favorite look is the 4.0mm length

Threads and bobbins ready to go! (This is a first for me).

 Serger threaded and tested! (I love this machine - it stitches perfectly all the time - she is also newly back from a tune up at the sewing store and in tip-top shape).  It is an oldie but goodie - a Viking Huskylock 1002LCD (it does the coverstitch too!). 

My sewing machine.  My previous machine I named Christine because it was possessed.  This one is my precious.  This is a Pfaff 2170.  It's also an oldie but goodie.  Not only does it sew beautifully and have 300+ decorative stitches, it also embroiders beautifully too.  I have reviewed this machine on patternreview.com in detail.  Click here

A view of my sewing area (so you cannot see the mess behind the camera).  Also that corner next to the sewing machine is where I take almost all the pictures for my blog :)

Tomorrow I start on the back pockets.

Make something beautiful.
Jen