I decided to try purchasing custom fabric from Spoonflower for a couple Christmas gifts. One still has not been completed, so I won’t say what it is yet, but the other one was a cotton/lycra jersey that was printed with chthulu babies. I had never heard of chthulu until I met Jim, and I still don’t know much, I know the word and know that it looks like/is an octopus. I usually purchase Jim a funny pair of underpants for Christmas every year, but this year I chose to make him underpants with this custom fabric.
I chose the Thread Theory Comax trunks pattern for this project. I have had it for about a year, so I figured it was time. 🙂 According to his measurements, he was at the max size of 45 so I traced it out. I decided to make a muslin using some light gray jersey I had in the stash, because I didn’t want to cut into my $27/yd fabric if it wasn’t going to fit!
I’m so glad I made a muslin. As I was sewing it I kept shaking my head because it looked so big… and it was! I pinched about 3 inches from his elastic waistband so decided to make the spoonflower fabric with size 42. They turned out nice, but are still a bit too big. Next time I’ll make a size 39, but before I do I’m going to do what I should have done in the first place – measure a pair of his comfortable underpants to compare the sizing. I have enough fabric leftover to make a second pair.
Check out some pics (pinned on my dressform – Jim refused to model for me).
The picture on the left looks like it has a soggy bottom, but it’s not that bad. It’s a gusset to go from front to back. It looks normal when it’s on the body.
My only imperfection with the construction is that I flipped the elastic to the wrong direction when attaching to the waist so the visible part of the elastic seam is visible on the outside of the underpants. Oh well, they will get worn and no one will see it anyway.
Brandi Made It! 