Lederhosen FINISHED!

Final Lederhosen Fitting -- SUCCESS!!

...And they FIT!  Which is fabulous, since I had NO backup plan in case they didn't fit and tomorrow is the first dress rehearsal.  After the young actor tried them on, I took the lederhosen back to my studio to decorate them:

Finished, Decorated, DONE.

That's better, isn't it?  I cut the fake welt pocket leaves out of felt and used 505 Temporary Spray Adhesive to position them next to the side seams.  Same with the extra leaf that I added on the placket thingy.  Then I used my BSR foot, stitch length 3.0, to free-motion the edge stitching to the lederhosen with jeans thread.  I added the little swirly things around the placket leaf the same way.  What did I learn?  Well, I thought that free-motion quilting was challenging with a flatbed setup, but it's MUCH more difficult to FMQ when you have to use the free arm because the pants are already assembled -- if I had this to do over, I'd have done the "decorating" before sewing the side seams together.  I did it this way because I didn't want to waste my time embellishing something that didn't fit and had to be scrapped.

Could I add more decorative swirlies around the faux pocket decorations?  Would the lederhosen look more authentic with a little knife pocket on the side seam?  Absolutely -- but this is a costume for a school play, that will only be worn for three performances, and I have put plenty of time into it already.  So I'm calling it Good Enough!  Back to my Jingle BOM!

A Puppy Portrait Plea and a Lederhosen Update

Proposed Formal Portrait of Otto

Now, how funny is that?  Bernie took some really great photos of our Rottweiler puppies the other day, and I just couldn't help myself...  I found some photos of oil portraits from my trip to the Louvre and used my design software to stick my puppies' heads in place of the people.



Proposed Formal Portrait of Lulu

This one is Lulu, my Puppy Princess Extraordinaire.  I think the hands would need to be replaced with paws, and the background might need to be lightened up a little so she doesn't blend into it and disappear.

My mother does some oil painting, and she painted a fantastic portrait of my sister's dog once from a photo.  If she loves me as much as she loves Janice, don't you think she should whip up these paintings of my sweet doggies as well?  After all, they are her grandpuppies.

I think it would be hysterical to hang large oil paintings of my dogs like this, in matching ornate frames, in my living room.  Did you hear that, Mother?  I would hang them in a PLACE OF HONOR IN MY HOME, where everyone would see them and marvel at your mastery.  Please please please please please...

And now, back to the lederhosen, which are almost actually finished.  I just need to sew on seven buttons and three buttonholes.  If I have time, I'll add that little knife pocket to the right side seam and maybe some decorations to make them extra-snazzy.  But even at this point, they are wearable with safety pins.  I think that all the top stitching with jeans thread helps to make them look more like leather, don't you?

Lederhosen Costume In Progress

These need to be finished TODAY, in time for rehearsal at 3:30 PM.  And they had just better fit the boy, because I can't really make any adjustments at this point and there isn't enough time to start over.  I used a strip of drapery buckram, trimmed to 2" wide, to stiffen the waistband, and I found some jute ribbon at Michael's to simulate the leather lacings at the sides.  I have some red and green felt that I'm thinking of using to recreate the effect of the oak leaf pocket design on Bernie's authentic lederhosen, as well:

Bernie's Real Lederhosen

We need to use the real lederhosen straps with our costume, and they are a hunter green embossed leather with red leather trim, like the decorative pockets, so I think that adding those red and green leaf pockets would help to make our brown lederhosen coordinate with the straps better.

Of course, nothing is getting done AT ALL as long as I sit at the computer, clickety-clacking away...

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...

Let's Sew Embroidered Lederhosen! Or, The One Where Rebecca has Lost her Mind

Strange Men in Lederhosen, photo courtesy of Google  ;-)

So my kids' school is doing a production of Willy Wonka Jr. in a few weeks, and they sent an email out to parents with a list of props and costume items they were hoping someone could donate or loan for use in the production.  One of those items was lederhosen for Augustus Gloop.  We have a pair of lederhosen that belonged to Bernie when he was a child, so I brought them in...  Alas, our Augustus Gloop is bigger than Bernie was when he fit into these leather shorts.  Then, because I am that rare combination of an insane person who is also a showoff, I heard these words coming out of my mouth: "I'll bet I could make him a pair of lederhosen out of some brown microsuede fabric that I have sitting around in my sewing room."  There were witnesses to this lunacy, and now I am officially responsible for costuming Augustus Gloop.  In lederhosen.  With no pattern, and no experience sewing any kind of shorts or pants, EVER. 

Bernie's lederhosen weren't embroidered; they were just decorated with leaf-shaped leather appliques, but my internet search for photo inspirations turned up quite a few embroidered versions.  Embroidering microsuede is sure to be a nightmare, which is right up my alley.  Fun, fun fun!

Here's the plan: I'm going to attempt to make a muslin pattern from the existing lederhosen by turning them inside out and tracing along the seamlines.  Then I'll add an inch or two to the length and width, sew the muslin together, and have the Augustus actor try them on for fit.  If the muslin fits, it's my pattern.  If not, I tweak it until it does fit.  I'm going to raise the waistband a bit, like the lederhosen dude on the right, so I can use the straps from Bernie's real lederhosen instead of having to mess with buckles etc.  I just have to put buttons on my shorts that fit the buttonholes on the lederhosen straps.

My microsuede fabric is soft and drapey, not stiff like the leather lederhosen, so I'm going to try to interface it with some Pellon stuff.  Can you fuse interfacing to microsuede?  I don't know -- but I'm going to find out!  The embroidery will be the fun part...  Here are some of the things I found online:

I am NOT going to attempt to put pockets on my lederhosen, but the shoe lace ties on the green pair might be fun...