Perfect (Retro) Jeans

I’m gearing up for the start of the Sewing Clothing for Kids e-course on Monday.  Add to that the desperate–and I mean, really DIRE–need my nearly-six-year-old has for pants right now, and I knew yesterday was Pants Day.  I had some lovely dark denim from the shop, so I opted to use the Perfect Pants pattern from the e-course to whip up some little jeans for her.  Since I also adore the pockets from the Overmost, I added those to the pants, with a sweet bandana-ish heart print lining, and gave them red top-stitching for a retro feel.

She was SO excited about these, I had a devil of a time getting her to stand even CLOSE to still so I could get photos. Or, more accurately, my choices were (1) wild racing around or (2) very odd, stagey affected poses.  Does anyone know where they get that?  I mean, she’s five and we don’t subscribe to any fashion magazines, but when you ask her to stand still for the camera, she sticks a hip out and makes this super unnatural smile.  (These photos are far below my hopes, but I don’t care: the fact that she came in and gasped with happiness that I’d made her something to wear, then wanted to put them on right away and run outside to “try them out” has erased any pride I might have taken in the photos.  I really just want to gloat a little about how much joy her joy gave me.)  Anyway–the short version is: she LOVES the pants.

I really love the fit.  These have an elastic back waist, and a mock fly with a flat waistband on the front, and I love that while they give her plenty of room to move and be active, they still fit well enough that she isn’t always yanking them up or fussing with them. Clothes they forget they’re wearing but that still look great–it’s like the Holy Grail of kids’ clothes.

I’d show you a flat shot, but she insisted on wearing them to school today–and told me that when she gets home, she’ll be taking them off, since she doesn’t want to get anything on them.  Does the heart good.

I’ve got some stretch twill in bubble-gum pink that wants to be another pair, so maybe this afternoon I can get those put together and figure out how to get better photos of the jeans for you.  It’s not all photos and blogging around here–we wear the stink out of this stuff!