Lederhosen Procrastination and Fabric Auditions

This is Not Lederhosen...

The first dress rehearsal for the school play is Tuesday, just three days away.  You would think that I'd have finished that lederhosen costume by now, wouldn't you, or that I'd at least be putting the finishing touches on it?  Nope -- I played with fabric and cut out all the pieces for the next pieced block in the Jingle Block of the Month quilt instead.  Do you like how I fussy-cut the little corner squares?  You would not believe how much time I spent mulling over fabrics and auditioning them together, and trying to decide which snippet of this glorious Christmas print should be featured on the corner squares of the block.  I can't wait to sew this block together -- but NO!  I have to make a lederhosen costume.  Ah, regret soaked in procrastination...

 Some helpful folks on the Yahoo Bernina groups alerted me to Burda's lederhosen patterns, but unfortunately the children's pattern does not go large enough for this actor, who wears a size 12 husky in ready-to-wear, but the men's pattern is way too large.  Also I have waited until the last minute, and now there is no time to order a pattern anyway.  My husband has been making helpful comments like "why don't you just buy a pair of brown shorts?"  He does not understand that I TOLD PEOPLE I could MAKE them out of fabric that I already own.  If I just went out and bought a pair of shorts, that would be like Bernie hiring someone else to fix a hole in the dry wall or put up crown moulding.  Plus, the little button flap front of the lederhosen is what makes them look authentic, and they do NOT sell any shorts that look like this at Gap Kids!

So I turned Bernie's old lederhosen inside-out and carefully traced off a muslin pattern along the seam lines. 

Since this is just a costume, I'm ignoring the pockets.  I carefully added an inch or so all the way around, trued up the seam lines so the pieces would match up and fit together properly, and then added seam allowances to that.  I basted the muslin pieces together and brought them to play practice for the little boy to try on.

Well, somehow I goofed because the legs flared out like an A-line skirt, but the waist was WAY too tiny and the boy couldn't close it!  I think I forgot to add back in the bulk of the darts in the back pieces or something.  Now that I look of that picture of my pattern piece for the back of the shorts, it's obvious that it's all goofed up.  I mean, LOOK at it!  So, do you think I went right back into my sewing room to fix the problem on the muslin and get busy on the real costume?  Of course not!  My ego was bruised, and I needed to do something that I'm good at to restore my confidence. 

I'm good at picking out fabric.  ;-)

I cut a 1 1/2" square out of an index card to create a little window for selecting which part of this big, busy print I could feature on the corners of my block:

Isn't that fun?  It's called Florentine Something-Or-Other and I've had it in my stash for years, just haven't found the right project for it yet.  The hardest part was finding a motif that fit into a 1 1/2 inch square, and the next hardest part was finding one that I liked that had the right colors and value, and that I had four repeats of in this piece of fabric. 

Anyway, back to the wretched lederhosen, which I have decided NOT to embroider.  This is a costume that will be worn only three times, and it isn't even for my own child to wear.  It would be crazy for me to slave away over this too much.  Especially since just making a pair of shorts that are shaped somewhat like a human being is proving to be such a challenge!

So I made the legs narrower, made the waist wider, and cut the pieces out of the microsuede yesterday.  I started sewing them together today, and now I'm working on the button flap thingy for the front.  Tomorrow is a busy day -- Anders has a friend sleeping over tonight, then Lars has Chinese tutoring in the morning and they both have piano lessons in the afternoon, but I hope I manage to drag myself back into the sewing room to finish the lederhosen costume.  My quilt block pieces will be flirting with me from across the room the whole time...