Monday, April 4, 2011

How not to make an internet tutorial, part 1.

Step 1. Decide to make your toddler some shorts using an old pair of pants.

Step 2. Take pictures of pants. These are an old pair of slightly-too-short and now too-big Gap pants that I got a good amount of wear out of despite the length issues.

Gap pants.

Step 3. Cut pants apart through the crotch.

Cutting apart.

Step 4. Show cutting layout. On the floor, of course, because that's where cutting happens in your house. It's not like you have a separate dedicated space for sewing or anything, right? Nope. It all  happens in the dining room. (I used the Oliver + s Sailboat Pants pattern, cut off short. It was a tight fit, but I squeezed the pieces onto my pants.)

Cutting layout.


Cutting layout.

Step 5. While you are doing this, allow your toddler to entertain himself by tossing a tennis ball around the room. Sip your morning coffee and lay it next to your cutting.

Step 6. (To be completed by toddler.) Aim tennis ball at mother's coffee cup. Throw. Follow up with "uh oh."

Step 7.  (Back to you, mom.) OH CRAP. Run for rags.

 Total disaster.

Step 8. Holler to husband for back-up. Refer to toddler as "YOUR SON."

Step 9. Run around like a chicken with its head cut off, sopping up coffee with rags, unpinning the soaked pattern pieces from the soaked fabric, etc.

Step 10. Ask yourself, why didn't you trace the pattern instead of folding it carefully down to size 3? Why? (Congratulate yourself for putting the fancy camera AWAY from the cutting.)

Step 11. Try to iron out pattern pieces to dry them out a little bit. Let the smell of burning coffee permeate the house. Use masking tape to repair tear caused by hasty unpinning. (At this point, you don't have time to adjust the settings on the camera, and bad photos result.)

Surveying the damage.

Step 12. Throw the cut and now coffee-saturated pieces of shorts into the washing machine ("Quick Wash," with soap, warm/cold).

Washing pieces.

Step 13. Assess the final damage. Not too bad. Those pattern pieces will permanently smell like coffee, but they are usable.  The coffee was super fresh, so it washed right out of the fabric. (I haven't been drinking coffee for 20 years without learning how to remove it from clothing.)


Step 14. Apologize to toddler for freaking out. Explain that you understand that he was just bored because mom was ignoring him and making an internet tutorial, and he didn't really mean to upset you. Kiss plump cheeks.

Step 15. Go crack open a beer.  Decide to come back to this project at a later date.

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