Genius ideas: Jalie's Gerald underwear for the male species and a couple of local geniuses

What goes around comes around and lately I am returning to more sewing for family.

I made all my children's clothes when they were little, but as they got to be teenagers, and I got more involved in my work, I sewed less for them and more just for myself.

This is changing. I am using my sewing again to communicate my family connections.

And in this family there are more than a few males.

Sewing for men is always interesting. 

Despite the fact that boys and men will wear a favourite garment past the stage of utility they can still be pretty fussy about what you sew for them. And also, until recently, there just haven't been many decent men's patterns around. Anyone who has made a Big 4 elephant sized pair of shorts or pyjama pants for a husband or son knows exactly what I mean.

So even knowing this a few years ago when weeding out some of my husband's most loved underpants from the laundry basket (as in weeding them right into the garbage)  I invested in a few underwear patterns. I think I had the very ambitious idea that I would sort of do a DIY upgrade of his underwear drawer, and that my spouse would be both impressed and very grateful.

Of course he didn't have a chance to be either. Once I looked through the instructions and realized how much binding, elastic, and little tiny pieces were involved, I ditched the idea. I think I went on to make myself a winter coat or something else less demanding.

So with all that in my history, Jalie's new release men and boys underwear pattern, short, longer and long johns really intrigued me.

What attracted me to this pattern was:

1. The waist was finished with encased elastic, no extra trip to the fabric store, and the hems were just hemmed.

2. The pieces were simple but very crafty, I knew all this pattern drafting thinking would give me a good fit.

3. The size range, as is typical for Jalie, went from very little and young to very large - I love the economy of this.

So let's start with the line drawing:

I decided to make my pairs without the trap door at the front, as both my subjects (age 3 and 65 ) confessed to never using those. Poppa Leo opted for the longer mid thigh length and Billy went for the shorter version.

Here are some detail shots giving you a sense of just how easy these were to make:

Back view, note there are no back or side seams which really makes them super comfortable according to the clients.

The front views and I could not resist super imposing the two pairs because I just thought this was so cute. Both are made of 100% cotton jersey. Note the interesting inseam gusset.

And finally the shot you have all been waiting for, the actual underwear on the actual guys who will wear them.

I have to tell you that during this photo shoot my son-in-law (Billy's dad) announced this was probably the strangest thing of many strange things that had happened at his house.

My husband, who generally is a pretty good sport, particularly when he senses that being a good sport is the quickest way to get me to stop talking about something, wondered if we couldn't do this picture taking in private. However when I pointed out I was going to post these pictures on the internet, and modesty was a dead cause anyway, he just gave up.

This is a really great pattern but sewers have to see it on to assess fit and make their own judgements.

I personally think they both look pretty cute:

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