It’s great to be writing another blog post after a prolonged festive season. We have celebrated Christmas, New Year and a dinosaur themed fifth birthday. Incidently, I’m rather chuffed on how the dinosaur cake turned out! We had a busy Christmas this year, and spent a lot of time outdoors with the boys. Last year I made them both a pair of fleece lined trousers. This blog (should) also cover sewing, and so I thought it might be good to take a look at them.
The trousers came into their own this December and January. They became soaking wet in both the North Sea and the Channel, built a den in the New Forest, hunted for flower fairies at our local National Trust property, kicked through piles of dried leaves and, possibly the most exciting trip of all, went on a night time hike up a big hill complete with torches. Who knows what more winter adventures they will go on in the next few months?
The basic pattern for the fleece lined trousers
It’s clear that these fleece lined trousers need to be washable, comfortable and practical. I used this pyjama pattern for the basic shapes. It’s ideal as the trousers are quite loose, easily pulled on and off, and have no faffy fastenings to get in the way of playing.
I chose cotton as the outer layer, using the small things line from Lewis and Irene. Monster has diggers on a red ground and Menace has the most adorable little hedgehogs. I followed the pattern and instructions to make this outer layer.
Adapting the pattern
I had some left over fleece from making the boys a dog and penguin onesie and decided to use this as lining for the trousers. The lining used the same basic pattern as for the outer layer, but with a few tweaks. I didn’t want bulk at the waist and hem and so I cut the lining pieces a little shorter. This meant that the casing for the elastic waist was made from the cotton layer only. The hem also was created from the cotton layer only.
The lining attached to the outer layer by seaming the casing for the elastic shut over the raw edges of the fleece at the top, and hemming over the raw edges at the bottom of the trousers. I hand stitch my hems, using the herringbone stitch.
Both the boys are happy to wear the trousers, so I’m assuming that they are comfortable. The trousers are also standing up to the wash very well so far. Menace has a tendency to gravitate to every muddy puddle going, so I’m sure they will be going on more adventures (and being washed again) soon.
