Thursday, February 21, 2008

Can I Talk Briefly About Boxers?

Crunchy Chicken mentioned Frontier House on her blog a while back. The concept sounded intriguing, could modern families live like they did on the frontier in 1883?

I took it out from the library and we watched it this weekend. On the one hand, the quibbly, reality show, talking to the camera stuff puts my undies in a twist. (Here's a tip to all omnivores, don't whine about protein in the presence of vegans. It makes us twitch!) On the other hand, if you could look past that, the lifestyle and the skills needed were very interesting.

Watching the show sparked a lot of great conversation. We really pondered the "how would you do..." aspect of a ton of situations. One of them was keeping the family clothed. Of course there was mending but how would you make clothes? Where would you get the cloth? What about clothes that were worn out? What new life could a worn out shirt have? Would you be as quick to put something in the rag bag when your resources were so immediately finite? When you begin to think like this, it reinforces the need to really get all the use out of any given item that you can. Which brings me to boxers.

Many of us will admit to drawing the thrift store clothes buying line at underwear. Chile pointed this link on making your own undies out of t-shirts a while back. I haven't tried it yet but I'd like to. However, because they're fitted, it sounds like I need to be more precise in my sewing. This scares me a bit.

On the other hand, if I was making boxer shorts for a little boy (or two little boys as the case may be) an imperfection here or there would be less noticeable since these are loose fitting by nature. They could also make use of t-shirts or even the flannel shirts that my hubby wears out at the collar and cuffs but no where else. What about bed sheets that get worn out in the middle but no where else? The list goes on and on!

Check out these links for ideas:

Underwear Sewing - ideas for everyone and free patterns

Free Needle - links to many free sewing patterns

Women's Boxer Pajamas

Techniques for making your boxer shorts the best they can be

ThreadBanger Blog's Boxer Pattern

Making Boxers for Old Pillowcases - also from ThreadBanger Blog

In fact, just go over and see the ThreadBanger Blog video

6 comments:

Chile said...

I'm picking the video up from the library today, Katie. I remember being pretty irritated when it originally aired but am going to be watching from a different perspective this time. Did you know PBS also has a website with additional info on it? I haven't perused it yet to see, but here's the link.

Ruthie said...

Katie ~

How funny :-) I was just thinking about making underwear but since I'm not too keen on sewing with elastic I kinda sloughed off the idea. I would like to make some knitted lingerie eventually (too much information?)

I wonder if girls can wear boxer shorts with a drawstring. I could probably make those pretty easily. I mean, it's got to be better than *bloomers* right? :)

Ruthie

Katie said...

Chile,
Jim was more irritated with the backbiting of Frontier House than I was. It made it hard for him to watch. Like you, I was able to look at it from another perspective and glean info about living in a less technological time.

Ruthie,
Check out the last link I listed, its a video tutorial that will get you past your fear of elastic! You can do it!

No joke, there's a knitted swim suit pattern in one of the Stitch 'n Bitch books. I think its called Stitch 'n Bitch Nation. That's be a good jumping point for your knitted lingerie!

Anonymous said...

I love sewing my own undewear. On the other hand, the fancy boxers I made for my DH were all too small :(

Anonymous said...

Making boxers out of t-shirts could be kinda cool, kinda fun, kinda comfy... not to mention eco-friendly. :-)

AnnMarie said...

If you liked frontier house, you may enjoy the book See you in a hundred years. A family (husband, wife, young daughter) decide to turn the clock back 100 years for a year. It's very neat to read about!