Tuesday, May 10, 2011

sewing fail

Looks like an ordinary waistband on some summery pajama pants. But look closer - see how it's stretched out completely?
This is a case where marinating in stash is not a good thing. When I sewed up these pajama pants just before Easter, I dug around in my stash of elastic, and came up with a hank that had obviously been there a while. It went in fine. the pants were great. I took them to the cottage for Easter, and the first night, when I put them on, I thought, hmmm, they're a touch looser than I usually make them. Considering the amount of chocolate I'd been testing, (Can't give the kid untested chocolate, now could we??), I didn't think I'd lost and inch or more around the waist. Whatever, it was late, I was tired, I went to bed. The next morning when I got up, I realized it was not my waist. These pants were falling right off me! The elastic I used has lost all elasticity! My husband thought it was pretty funny, seeing me hitch these babies up all the time!
Luckily, it's an easy fix - new elastic, and they're as good as new. Which is good, becasue this cotton seersucker is incredibly comfortable.
The downside - getting rid of a ton of old hanks of elastic that's no good any more. Good think wool doesn't lose any thing with age...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never known waist elastic to fail like that, and I've got some of my mom's stash of sewing notions
(from the 50's I'm guessing). But I had a whole spool of lycra filament go "sprong" and it was just a few years old. Well, maybe 10. Annoying, isn't it.
Marlyce in Windsor

TracyKM said...

If the elastic was never used, what makes it go bad? What about steaming it? I've read to do that when making your own underwear and swimsuits.

Knit and Purl Mama said...

Huh - good to know elastic goes bad. I won't eve stock up on that then, just get it as needed.