She's not wearing THAT!

I find it terribly uninspiring to be creative with the sewing machine when I have a house load of builders, plumbers (WHY CANT THEY GET PANTS THAT FIT???) and stonemasons.

Being a bit of a D.I.Y junkie, I just want to get in the mix and start drilling, painting, scraping at stuff. Last night after I bathed She-Who-Worships-Pink, in the almost assembled bathroom, I let Mr Frenchie put her to bed and ten minutes later he found me on my knees with a file digging at the old grout around the tub.

So up until now, my end of week finishes (aside from my tax), have been to hang two venetian blinds, cut down and fit some pelmets and clear out Pinkster's craft/homework desk (that was an hour right there). Oh yeah and rig up a small mirror on the back of her DVD player shelf (so she can use the remote control from the front of the screen).

Message to designers of Portable DVD players around the world (well China mostly); if you're going to be all clever pants about designing a flip around screen, make it so you don't have hold the remote at the back to have it be of any use at all. PLEASE.

By the way, if you have this problem, a small mirror pulled out of  an old compact and some Blu Tack will sort you out in a jiffy!

But necessity (for sewing) struck when a note from school announced this year there will be two sport uniform days. We have only one and I made it so I needed to make another.

My first visit to the uniform shop confirmed the necessity to tailor Pinkster's sport shorts; the tops are fine but-the-bottoms...

They are wider than they are long - each leg is like it's own lampshade and the waistband is more crushing than a Boa Constrictor even on the skinniest child.

My other problem is that they are indeed shorts and poor Pinkster with her eczema inflicted knees, needs more cover.  So I took my old faithful pyjama bottom pattern, tapered the legs and made these cute little stretch Capri Pants. I used cotton-rich heavy jersey fabric. Breathable enough for summer but thick enough to protect those knees.

I love this pattern block because there are no side seams which makes it super-fast to sew together. I cut the latest size mid last year but I need to grade it up again and make the next pair a bit bigger all round . This girl is growing fast and no child of mine is going to have her rear-end poking out over her waistband.

The bathroom's being finished on Monday which means I'll have the plumber trundling through at 7am. Maybe I should ask the him if he'd like me to sew him some comfy work pants, ones that cover his decolletage des fesses.

Oh and speaking of unsightly cracks, :0) does anyone out there know of a good product for mending cracked porcelain tiles? The stone mason did a whoopsie.