On Sunday my eldest daughter chose some fabrics from my stash that she wanted me to make some shorts with.
I’ve used this pattern a number of times before, it goes up to age 8 but I didn’t have the pattern printed in this size so printed it off, cut out the paper pieces, stuck them together and on Sunday night cut out the pieces from fabric.
Yesterday I had a child free morning so got sewing, it all came together as I expected it to and then it was time for preschool pick up and no more sewing was done until after their bedtime.
I started to become confused when attaching the waistband to the shorts. I discovered that it was too big, you can see from the photo below the stitch line on the right with a SA of 1/4″ but I need to make the piece smaller and you can see the stitch line on the left which I had to use to make the waistband fit.
At that point I pulled out the pattern piece for the waistband (which I hadn’t reprinted) and checked that I had cut it right and yes I had.
But I had suspicions that the shorts didn’t look big enough for age 8 so I pulled out all the pattern pieces. And it was then that I realised that my printer must have scaled the pattern. The piece on the left is the original piece that I used at age 6 a few years ago. The piece on the right I thought was age 8 but as you can see it is significantly smaller than the piece on the left:
So major meltdown happened here, I was so cross, gutted and annoyed. A mistake I know but I should have checked.
This morning I confessed all to Bethan and she said ‘don’t worry mum I forgive you’!! Leah is almost 6 and she didn’t turn her nose up at them so I’ll get them finished today and hope they fit her:
They just need elastic and ties in the waistband and hemming. The pockets were cut from the original pattern at ‘real’ age 8 so are a little big for the shorts but I’m NOT unpicking.
Oh and the slightly better news is that I probably do have enough fabric of both prints to make the correct size shorts for Bethan!
Have you had any sewing disasters this week? Please help me to feel better (Moira shared hers yesterday).
Oh Mary I completely sympathise – bet there was much “Grrrr’ing” at that discovery. At least you had the good foresight to have a smaller daughter to pass them onto! I’ve been making something for my sister which has challenged me (in a good way) but resulted in much unpicking, re-stitching and re-cutting late into the evenings this week…measure twice, cut once – haha!
I am just back at my sewing machine today, so I’m sure it won’t be long!
I made a cushion cover yesterday, quilted it and completely forgot to put any lining in behind the wadding! Doh! jxo
I have a sewing fail every time I sit down to sew. But here are a couple of my better ones, to make you feel like a rocket scientist in comparison:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nowwerecookiejenny/7812171838/in/set-72157626713094050
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nowwerecookiejenny/7812171510/in/set-72157626713094050
Oh sweary words! Still, at least you had another potentially satisfied customer standing by!
aw sweetie. At least you saved them for Leah so not too much of a fail really.
I had a similar printout scaling problem. I printed out blocks for a quilt and found they are too big. Puts the seam allowance out. Grr. Nothing lines up properly.
Found you via KCW. I really should be cutting out my daughter’s top. Instead I’m seeing what every one else is making.
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