Baby, it's cold outside!

After all of the Halloween sewing, I was so ready to do some selfish, easy sewing! I pulled out some pink jersey and an easy, but new to me cardigan pattern and had it (and a cardi for Myra) all cut out, when Logan blew the knee out of his favorite pair of pants. Y'all, I'm not gonna lie, I've been turning a blind eye to the desperate need that sweet boy has for new pants. He wears shorts as much as possible, but it really is getting cold, and his pants are veering dangerously close to the "high waters" territory. Naturally, he refuses to wear all RTW pants. So I traced out the next size of our favorite Ottobre pants from the 01/2009 issue.

I made them out of fleece. Logan loves fleece pants, and who can blame him? They're warm, soft and comfy. This pattern is basic, although Ottobre includes a ton of fun pockets and patches so that you can dress them up. For these two pairs, I only added a cargo pocket to one pair, inspired by a pair I saw in the mini Boden catalog.

I oversaturated the image so hopefully it would show the pocket. I used the coverstitch to hem and attach the pocket and left the edges raw. Hopefully, this makes them look less like PJ pants and more like daywear.

While I was cutting out the grey pair, Mitch wandered in to the sewing room. He petted the fleece and commented that it was quite nice, then in a subtle for him move, mentioned that his very favorite thing that I've sewed him is his fleece Kwik Sew pullover (which he was actually wearing at the time). Mitch doesn't ask for much, and I had plenty of that grey fleece, which was quite nice indeed.

I've made this pullover (Kwik Sew 3570) quite a few times as well, twice for Mitch and twice as gifts. I have to say that it is one of my favorite patterns, too. It is quite easy to sew, looks nice and fits Mitch's athletic figure well. If you sew for men or teenage boys, you really ought to have this pattern in your arsenal. It works just as well in jersey or interlock for a casual top as it does in fleece for a snug pullover.
This time around, I tried something new with the neckband that I really liked.

I know this picture isn't that helpful. Here's the skinny. The instructions have you sew the neckband on right sides together to the neckline, insert the zipper, then fold over the upper half of the neckline (basically a fold over facing) and stitch in the ditch around the neckline to secure it. Now this is fine, since the zipper eliminates any need for the neckline to stretch, but I always thought it looked sloppy on the inside. This time, instead of stitching in the ditch, I simply stitched the two seam allowances together using an overedge stretch stitch on my sewing machine. What the picture is trying to show you is the black serged seam (which was the first neckline to neckband seam) and on top, the overedge stitch to secure the facing. It's a bit hard to see since the thread from the second pass matches the fabric so it sort of disappears. Anyway, I really like the way this turned out - no floppy seam allowances around the neck - so I'll be doing it this way going forward.

Now, back to my pink cardigans!