Sizing up

It seems that winter is finally putting in an appearance around these parts.  I have laundry on the line more in the hope of it smelling nice after a blast in the sunshine than actually drying, and when we headed out to the supermarket at 10 this morning I still had to spend a good few minutes scraping ice from the windows and mirrors with the aid of a bottle of warm water.

Perhaps my next project is then rather serendipitously timed.  I've been planning on making Kitty another pair of the Quick Change trousers from Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings book for a little while.  Jo over at A Life in Lists, mentioned the idea of using flannel for the linings in a post on her plans for her boys' winter wardrobe, and it seemed like such a great idea for snuggly winter trews that I'm shamelessly copying it.


A Black Friday sale at Fabricworm brought me a little parcel of pretty fabric just before Christmas (Sherbet Pips pink skaters and Michael Miller bicycles blue cotton flannel), and I've been sat looking at it as I knit, and thinking about how best to size these new trousers.

The pair I made for Kitty's birthday in the size 18-24 months (the largest pattern size) are a great length on my little 15 month old, but she still has that babyish chubbiness (particularly when you factor a cushy washable nappy into the mix) that makes them not tight exactly, but with a little less ease than I think would make for a perfect fit.

Her two pairs of dungarees are a great fit, with lots of room for an active little girl to romp around in, and you can see from the comparison that they are both a little bit wider across the derriere.

You can also see that her pirate trousers need another wash but we'll gloss over that. 

I've decided to try to add an inch to the circumference to match them to the pink flowery dungarees, which should also allow for any extra space taken up by the flannel which is a shade thicker than the quilting cotton that I used for the first version.
 

I copied out the pattern onto baking parchment and then used my long skinny quilting ruler to follow the line for the outside edge of the pattern piece at the half inch mark, turning it gently as the curve moved away from the straight line.  The front and the back leg were easy enough, I can only hope that I've got the extra space on the right side of the back yoke, but for that only time will tell.

I know it means that I'll have more space at the ankle than I had previously, and there are no real needs to increase there, but it seemed more sensible to cut for the extra space and then try them on Kitty.  If I need to bring it back to the original lines that will be easy enough to do, and I can mark the point at which I start to want the extra width on my real life model, without having to guestimate while she sleeps.


I did the cutting out earlier this week and it's all been sat in a little pile of fabric temptation on my newly tidied desk as I slogged away to finish a work project in almost every evening this week.  But now the project is done (until Tuesday anyway) and there's time for a little sewing of the non-Christmas, non-deadline variety.