Friday 19 July 2013

Burda Style 02-2013-146 Self Inflicted Emergency Sewing

I am sure there are people who have calm and unrushed mornings, and have all their children beautifully organized.
I am not one of those people. On Thursday morning, my son arrived in the kitchen, fully dressed, which sounds like a good start. However, I sent him back to his room, as he was supposed to be wearing his sports uniform.
This did not go down well.

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"I'm not wearing my sports uniform"

"Yes you are, I just got a start of term note from your teacher saying sports uniform on Thursdays and Fridays"

"That's for girls, I can do sports in my normal uniform"

I saw his point, sports uniform being woven nylon shorts with knit poly shirt,and formal uniform being woven poly shirt and woven poly shorts (dresses for girls), these poly shorts having been sneakily exchanged for woven cotton shorts by his heat conscious mother. However, I don't think annoying the school about uniform is appropriate behaviour, so we continued the conversation through his bedroom door.

"I hate my sports uniform"

"Tough"

"The shorts are too small"

"Rubbish, the last time you wore the shorts was only 3 weeks ago, last term, how can they be too small"

He emerged from the bedroom. I had to eat humble pie. The shorts were far too small.

My son then told me that he had been wearing his formal shorts all last term for sports.
I had not even noticed (admittedly, both sets of shorts are supposed to be knee length and navy blue, and are not particularly distinctive, other than one having a waistband and fly and the other having an elastic waist without fly front.

My son and I discussed the reasons for informing his mother about too small clothing at times other than immediately before school.

I wrote an "I am a disorganized mother, who cannot send her child to school in the correct uniform, please don't give him detention" note to the teacher.

He cunningly left this behind.

Having the morning off work, I made a new pair of sports shorts, instead of more amusing sewing, under the influence of maternal guilt.

They are an adaptation of Burda Style 02-2013-146, which are actually a pattern for formal trousers for boys in my son's size range. (The previous shorts pattern stopped about 3 sizes ago, and I thought it was time to stop lengthening it and trace out a new one)

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(See the grimace on the the boy model? There was a grimace like that on my boy too, when I took the photo, but he doesn't want it on the blog)

 I left in the front pleats and back darts, my son's girth being lower on the Burda size chart than his height, but did not use the fly front, and added elastic to the waistband. I also straightened the leg a little for a more baggy sports shorts appearance.

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I was quite pleased with myself.

Then I discovered two pairs of child's size 10 uniform sports shorts in the hand-me-down box.

Sigh





11 comments:

Kay said...

kbenco, your post makes me laugh. I agree with you that I'll never be one of those moms who have well organized calm and beautiful mornings!

Lyndle said...

You'll go to mother heaven for sacrificing valuable sewing time for a yukky school uniform. At least 'my shorts are dirty' won't be an excuse... Tho I'm not sure i actually recall hearing that excuse from a boy...
Thank you for making me laugh and laugh.

Lyndle said...

Ps cannot believe the polyester fetish in subtropical Qld. What are they thinking?!

Summer Flies said...

Oh I am in the same boat... 2 pairs of long trousers are cut and waiting for sewing this week as my son has gotten about 10 cm taller that last year. I do the sneaky (but clever) trick of making last years trousers into this next summer's shorts!

Judith said...

That's growing boys for you! And it sounds like he has many more active growing years left in him yet - keep that blue fabric handy...J

Carolyn said...

A familiar story, and I take my hat off to you for making unexciting stuff like school uniforms! The second hand shop would have been my first port of call!

Sandy said...

Your son is 10. you have some fascinating years to come! I know too well the sudden communications about things he has known for weeks.
Sandy in the UK
(Sew Whatever)

Sandra said...

Thanks; I enjoyed reading about your sewing for your son. And that grimace on the blond boy model's face -- priceless.

RebeccaHoward said...

Hehe. Can't tell you how many times stuff like that happened to me. Probably happening in every household across Australia every morning!

Mary said...

kbenco, You are a good mom!! I laughed at this story and was grateful I'm retired from teaching. We didn't care for all those rules either!

liza jane said...

I want to see the grimace photo!