Charity Sewing and a Pair of Pants

Oh my poor neglected blog.  I have been remiss in writing lately, mainly because as I've been busy crafting.  Well busy crafting and this:

 Yes, I decided to host Thanksgiving this year.  I figured that this would be one of the few times that I have a full size oven, so I should take advantage of it.  We ended up with about 15 full size eaters and a bunch of little ones too.  I spent a good chunk of Wednesday night and Thursday cooking.  A lot of work, but boy was it tasty! 

Anyway, what else has been keeping me too busy to write?  Every year the International Women's Club in Kyiv holds a Christmas Bazaar.  My good friend is running the American booth and talked me in to helping out by making aprons. Aprons, I thought, that can't be too difficult.  Of course.  We'll dear readers I have been making aprons for the last week and a half and they still aren't done.  And there is only twelve to make!  Why you might ask?  Well, we were restrained in how much money we could spend (roughly $23.00), and it had to be American themed- so red, white, and blue.  We'll just say that the fabric left a bit to be desired, so I decided to get my painting on.

These are the two designs that I decided to do.  I used the Lumiere paint, but this time was a little more difficult, mainly due to the fabric.  The red fabric soaked up paint like no tomorrow.  And each stripe took forever.  I enlisted the help of the same friend to do the rest of the painting.  We spent three hours straight painting on Tuesday night.

We ended up being able to do ten aprons with the original design, before I ran out of white paint.  We really wanted to make all twelve, so I decided to do Christmas themed aprons for the last two.

I free handed the Christmas trees, which used up 90 percent of the green paint I had.  It was kind of fun to glob it on though after having to be so careful with the white stripes.  Even with masking tape, we had to brush lightly, so that we could extend the white a much as possible. 

I decided to make the pockets into presents with a bow.  On the tree I was going to paint ornaments, but decided that lights would be better.

Being the overachiever that I am, I decided to finish the pockets and the apron with bias binding.  I had a bunch that I had bought from Jo-Anne's at I think 75% off.  I did part on Friday night and part on Saturday.  Ten aprons and pockets, that a lot of bias binding.  I did finally get it down without using pins.  Yay me!

I didn't think that the Christmas ones would look good with white bias binding, mainly because there was no white used anywhere in these aprons, so I had to go to plan b.  On Saturday, I went to a fabric store that I thought was maybe a 15 minute drive, but turned out to be closer to 25 minutes (as we had to drive a couple miles past it to turn around).  I thought that it would be cheaper than the lux ones closer to my house.  It was.  I got a meter and a half of thick yellow lining for $4.00 and a ton of trim for about $25 (34 meters of ribbon, two zippers, 12 buttons...), but I don't think I'll return to this store as it's difficult to get to.

The aprons aren't done, as I decided on Sunday that I needed some selfish sewing, so I made a pair of pants.  Wearing History's Smooth Sailing Trousers (found here) to be exact.  It has gotten quite cold here, so I wanted a pair of super cosy, but easy to wear pants.  I used the same wool/cashmere and lining as my Marine Ball gown.  (I actually bought more just to make the pants.)  I only made two changes to the pattern (well three if you count lining it).  First- as the wool/cashmere likes to shrink even with pre-treating it, I changed up the waistband.  Instead of using interfacing and folding it over, I made it out of two pieces.  Like my Marine Ball belt, I used coutil as the backing.  It came out nicely.  Second, I used a button and buttonhole instead of a hook and eye.  Here are some detail shots.

 My plan was to make a top to go with it tonight, but I am worn out.  My little guy has decided to not sleep.  He's been fighting going to bed and then waking up at 5 AM.  This has been exhausting me for the last week.  Luckily tonight, he was tired and went to bed fairly quickly, but I had no energy to whip up the top I wanted.  Oh well, I have plenty to wear with the pants.  I hope to take pictures tomorrow.  

And on a final note, here are some cute pictures of that little guy.  Oh and if you're in Kyiv and want to buy a patriotic apron- you should totally check out the IWCK bazaar this Saturday.  It's at Olympskiy stadium on this Saturday, December 6, from 10-5. It's for a good cause- all the proceeds go to charity.  Until next time Happy Sewing!