Goldilocks pants: Burda 10/2013 #127

Everyone has their sewing nemesis - for some people it's installing zippers or doing buttonholes, for me it's sewing pants! It's not difficult to sew pants, it's just that I haven't had the energy to do all the muslins and fitting required to make a decent fitting pair to be honest. I have however signed up for a two days pants fitting and sewing course at the Australian Sewing Guild convention later this year which hopefully should set me on the right path.

In the meantime however I've had reasonable success with Burda 10/2013 #127 given that I've done next to no fitting changes to it. The pattern looks like this:

The first pair I made last October were from a cotton linen blend that stretch and bag out so much after wearing them for barely an hour so it was lucky I added belt loops otherwise the pants would end up around my ankles! The legs were also much wider than the model's photograph or the line drawing suggest. I still wear them though, in a casual slouchy kind of way.

The second pair I made last December were cut off at the knee to make shorts out of a stretch cotton drill I bought from Spotlight. I made these a little smaller to account for the stretch fabric but it turns out the drill doesn't stretch out or sag so these fit a little firmly and are a bit high waisted for my liking. Once again though I still wear them! They are good for getting around the playground and being high waisted there's no display of underwear when I kneel down.

But the third pair have turned out not too big and not too small but just right (hence the goldilocks reference in the title!).

I think the fabric is a cotton twill (can't quite remember the exact fabric type or composition now) that I bought from Tessuti in January when I had a sewing day there. The print is actually a dark navy blue on cream.  Both Beverley and I had our eyes on this fabric the entire day and between the two of us we bought the last 5 or 6 metres of it.

For this pair I narrowed the legs to make them look more like the Burda model's version rather than what the pattern actually makes but not so narrow that they are too tight because this fabric doesn't have any stretch. I also lowered the front rise a little because I just can't stand things sitting anywhere near my waistline.

The very busy pattern hides the fitting faults which aren't significant, just a bit of excess fabric underneath the seat but if I walk around with my hands in my pockets you can't tell anyway!

I love this fabric so much that I've already cut out a dress from the remaining piece of this fabric and I think my case of the sewing blahs have gone away!