Things sewn in 2020: pants

 After more than 20 years of sewing, pants remain my nemesis. Sure they are fairly easy to make, but we all know that getting them to fit well is very difficult. Every time I make a fresh pair I make slight adjustments and I feel I am slowly getting there! Last year I made six pairs of pants, with varying degrees of success.

My favourite pants that I made last year is a wide leg pant from a a pattern that I have made a few times previously: Burda 10/2016 #113.

I made a pair in a blush pink medium weight linen that I made as per the pattern with the wide legs and the sewn on pockets on the front. I also made a black pair from wool suiting, that I narrowed the leg and left off the pockets.

I find that the wide leg style mostly gets rid of those annoying drag lines I usually get on the back of the thigh. When I narrowed the leg for the black pair they came back slightly, but it seems this pair has a good crotch curve for me. After doing Sarah Veblen's course on pant fitting over at patternreview.com I have discovered I need to have a long back crotch and to scoop it quite low to provide enough space for my ample and low hanging derriere.

My next favourite pair from last year are a pair that I haven't worn as yet (because they are work pants), but I love the shape and look even though I would never have thought I would wear pleat front pants ever again! This pattern has a v-shaped yoke at the front, which means that the pleats start lower on my stomach and the fabric is flat over the roundest part of my waist which makes it more flattering. There are a few wrinkles on the back leg but less than I usually get, so I can live with how these look.

These pants are made from a navy blue wool suiting, using Burda 4/2014 #110.

I made another pair of wide leg pants early in 2020 from a printed linen that has been in my stash for a long time. I wore these quite a few times to work with a blue blazer and the chartruse one in the photo below, and casually with a black or white tshirt. The colour has faded after so many washes, but these are still great pants. This is another Burda pattern of course, this time 2/2010 #110:

Finally, my least two favourite pairs made last year. I bought some lovely dark teal linen to make a suit, but the pants didn't turn out great. The pants are a bit high waisted, and since linen grows after wearing it for a while these pants have a tendency to slide down and look saggy. After wearing them a few times I decided I couldn't live with them as they were, and I've actually got these pants in my repair pile with the waistband pulled off. I'm going to take them in slight at the side seams and put some elastic in the back waist to help keep them up where they belong.

Apart from that they are ok, but not great. I found the welt pocket at the back gaped open, so I added a little tortoiseshell button to help keep it closed. There are wrinkles on the back leg as usual, indicating the crotch curve needs some more work on this pattern.

The pattern is Burda 12/2013 #106:

Finally I get to my least favourite pair but funnily enough I still frequently wear these because they are casual and lightweight and just what I need these days. These are Burda 4/2016 #117 and I like the pocket flaps and the hem cuffs, but the fit on these turned out just awful. Whiskers across the front, wrinkles on the back leg and a weird length - if the cuff is down it looks accidentally too short so I wear them turned up to look deliberately cropped.

But they are comfortable, and since they are made from a light cotton sateen they have been perfect for this cool and rainy summer we have been having here in Sydney this year.

 

This isn't the end of my pants fitting journey - I've given up making muslins because all I end up with are a bunch of poorly fitting calico pants that can't be worn anywhere! Instead, I'll keep on making slight adjustments until I reach my holy grail - a pair of slim leg pants with no wrinkles on the back leg.....

Ready for summer - wide leg linen pants

I had absolutely no reason to make a pair of summery linen pants since we've had torrential rain and cold weather lately (which is great, because we need all the rain we can get!). But since I'm at home going nowhere with more clothes than I currently need why not make whatever takes your fancy? Plus I know the warm weather is only just around the corner and this time I'll be ready if I ever go back to working in an office, going out with friends or just doing anything other than working from home.

These are Burda 10/2016 #113, which I first made as one of my Burda of the month challenge projects:

After years of wearing skinny pants, it does feel strange but also freeing to wear wide leg pants. Thankfully these aren't too wide - more just a straight leg from the hips down.

A few years ago I was on a mission to perfect pants fitting and used a whole 10m bolt of calico making multiple muslins and I still didn't make a pair I liked. I've realised that wide leg pants like these suit my lumpy legs best the fabric just hangs straight down, but still every time I make pants I continue to make fitting adjustments.

This time I used the crotch curve of the largest size but the leg and waist sizes in my normal size, and I also increased the height of the back rise by adding a wedge and spreading the dart open to keep the crotch curve correct - I didn't do this properly last time and it made the pants gape open at the back. I've read so many resources on pants fitting I can't remember where I learnt this from, but this is what it looks like:

I do love the wide curved waistband - it's quite comfortable and sits over my mum tum because these are high waist pants (well probably at the natural waistline which feels high to me!).

And how nice is this white top? I bought it from an op shop without even trying it on thinking I could salvage the fabric for a refashion but it turns out it fits perfectly and looks smashing with these pants:

The only thing I'm not sure on is the length of these worn with heels - these days I tend to wear flat shoes most of the time so that's the length I hemmed these to. They are perfect when worn with sneakers and flat sandals, so I guess that's what I'll have to wear with these pants

It's not often that I make pants and like how they look, but this pattern is a winner in my books. I've made these two times previously - firstly in 2016 in a white pinstripe cotton that sadly no longer fit and then again in 2018 in paprika linen which I do still wear frequently.

I never thought I'd be wearing and loving a pair of pale pink linen pants but it turns out that pink is a neutral that goes with just about any colour. As much as I love winter and the cold weather, I'm slightly looking forward to summer now so I can start wearing these pants out more than just the quick dash to the supermarket I did today!

The not so secret pyjamas

Sometimes (actually quite often) subtlety eludes me - I'm constantly told I can be relied upon to tell it like it is, although I do try to be diplomatic!

So while everyone is talking about their secret pyjamas I just cut straight to the chase and made a pair of pants that essentially look like pyjamas, according to my family at least. 

Now that I'm getting used to wide leg pants after wearing skinnies for so many years, I'm enjoying the swishy feeling of striding around with swathes of fabric around my legs. This is a super soft rayon I bought from Spotlight after seeing @gabrielle_upsewlate make a pair of pants from very similar fabric (yes I am blatantly copying her!).

The pattern is Burda 5/2013 #117. I've cut out a larger size than I needed because I wanted these very loose fitting, which is why it doesn't look much like the pattern photo or drawing.

I've made this a few times before and it's really a simple pattern. It comes with the illustrated instructions in the magazine which I find a bit ridiculous since it's such a simple pattern and there are more difficult patterns in the magazine that could have benefited from the extra directions, but that's Burda for you!  I don't think I posted the last pants I made from this pattern last year - it's essentially the same as this project but just in blue rayon:

The only thing I don't like about this pattern is the waistband treatment - essentially the top is just folded over and stitched into a drawstring casing, which means the pocket bag, pocket side piece and front of the pants are part of the waistband. This is a bit bulky and messy looking, so I ended up cutting off the top and just sewing a normal rectangular waistband instead.

I only bought 1.5m of this fabric because I didn't want any small pieces left over to add to my overflowing scraps basket. It turned out this was the perfect amount but it didn't allow me to pattern match or properly consider pattern placement - it's rather obvious at the side seam and a little embarrassing at the centre back....

Oh well, I can't see the back so I don't care if I have a big flower on my butt! The pants are perfect for those warm days when I haven't been diligent with shaving or waxing and I can see myself wearing them quite a bit during our upcoming summer. And even better - I only bought this fabric last week so it didn't even hit the stash. Gotta love fabric that goes straight from the washing line and into your wardrobe!

Finally, a pair of pants that fit me!

I started sewing when I was around 19 which means that I have been sewing for more than half my life (explains the size of my stash right?). I have made lots of pants (trousers) in the last 21 years but I have never really achieved a very good fit thanks to my very pronounced pear shape and lumps and bumps around the bottom half of my body. In recent years I've tried pants patterns by nearly every pattern company, including the Sewaholic Thurlows that everyone lauds as the answer to pear shape pants, attended a few pants fitting classes and tried lots of adjustments without quite getting the fit I wanted.

When I was younger, as long as I could get on the pants and do the zipper and button up I was happy enough with the fit.  But now, what I really want are some pants that fall straight at the back of the legs without loads of wrinkles and no whiskers at the front. These latest pants are pretty good:

The pattern is Burda 10/2016 #113:

I've made these once before (here) that turned out reasonably ok so I knew it was a good starting point for making further adjustments. I left off the pockets, reduced the length by 15cm so I could wear these with flat shoes and reduced the width of the legs by 2cm because these really are wide leg pants. Look at how wide these legs are still after being narrowed:

I also made significant fitting changes to the crotch curve which is what has improved the way the back legs fall.

Crotch depth and length
I have been watching hours of the very excellent Sarah Veblen Fun With Fitting Pants online class and making multiple muslins of the Eureka! Pants that Fit pattern and have finally realised that due to my wide and ample but low sitting derriere that pants patterns don't have enough length and aren't scooped low enough to fit my shape. All these years I had just been adding extra width to the side seams to accoutn for my saddle bag thighs but it turns out that I needed to add to the inner back leg seam to extend the crotch lenght and scoop the crotch shape so that it is no longer a "J" shape but more of an elongated reversed "L" shape.

The Eureka! Pants That Fit pattern is very useful in terms of fitting - it has all the horizontal balance lines marked and it has three options for the back pattern piece depending on your size. However once you've got the fit right you then need to make fashion adjustments to the pattern - lowering the waist line, adding a waist band or facing and adjusting the leg width depending on what you want. I decided to just transfer the fitting changes to the Burda pattern since the Burda pattern had the look I wanted instead of making further adjustments to the Eureka pattern.

I can highly recommend Sarah's online class, but this tutorial by Maria Denmark and this blog post over at 5 Out Of 4 Patterns are also extremely useful in figuring out the type of crotch curve needed for your particular body shape. I used a flexible ruler and four muslins to get that crotch curve close to what I needed. I didn't take a photo of the Burda pattern, but here are the adjustments I'm currently making to a pair of Style Arc pants (the crotch curve of Burda and Style Arc are very similar by the way) - the red pencil show how much I've added to the inner leg seam and the much lowered curve:

Forward tilting pelvis
Another fitting issue I always have with pants and skirts is that I find the front sits too high on my waist but the back dips too low below my waist when standing, and is even worse when sitting. I always thought that was due to my big butt, but now I think it may be because my pelvis is titled forward (hence my swayback). I now use the cut and hinge method to lower the front and heighten the back which seems to work especially well for pencil skirts too:

Again, the amount needed came from experimentation but I find that 2cm works for me to make the waist parallel. These pants are rather high waisted which is part of the look of this pattern, but this adjustment works well for lower slung pants and skirts too.

You can see in the photo above there are still some wrinkles - that's the hollow below my high hip and the top of my saddle bags but I think to get rid of that I would need to make these much looser fitting which I didn't want to do in linen since the fabric would relax after wearing them for a while anyway.

These are the fitting changes I needed to make these wide leg pants fit better, and I suspect that part of the good fit is because there's enough space to drape over my other problem areas! I'm finding it's a whole different story trying to make narrow leg pants - my extended calves and prominent front thighs tend to catch the fabric and cause all sorts of drag lines that I'm still working on reducing in a narrower leg.

This fabric is a heavy weight linen from The Fabric Store in paprika and is one of those fabrics I bought just last week so that's 2 out of 3 now sewn - yay for me! I used the Sandra Betzina method of preparing linen - a hot iron, a hot wash and then a hot tumble dry - in the hope of minimising the amount of wrinkling. It is linen so it will always end up wrinkling after wearing - the photos below were taken after a normal day at the office and do show lots of wrinkles from sitting around but I don't think it looks too messy or sloppy:

The top I'm wearing is made from OOP Vogue 2659 pattern that I've had in my stash for years. The fabric is a lovely ribbed knit that I bought in Japan that is so soft. I made this top back in May at the sewing retreat I went to with the sewing guild and it was a very quick sew. I've made this once before in a ponte knit (also black and white stripe!) but this version sits differently because the knit is a bit thinner - it's a bit lower around the back neck than I would like but I usually wear a jacket or a scarf so it's fine.

So my next challenge now is to make a pair of decently fitting narrow leg pants because while I like the wide leg look I don't want a whole wardrobe full of them! Fingers crossed it's not another 21 years before I achieve that....

Burda pants again and bonus Style Arc top

Usually when I make a dud project I put it into a big box with all the other less than ideal projects with the vague idea that one day I'll remake it into something else. That box is as large as my UFO box! Unfortunately the allure of a new project, from a fresh length of fabric is too strong and those projects sit there for a long time.

Not this time though - I've remade the ridiculous wide leg pants that I made last month (posted here). Partly because my refashion box is in storage with the rest of my sewing room supplies, but mainly because I really love this beautiful rust coloured wool fabric.

The original pants (3/2017 #115) had very wide legs, pleats at the front and angled pockets at the side. I remade them using Burda 10/2016 #113 which I made last year in white and blue pinstripe fabric (posted here), which I thought were really wide leg pants until I made this pair!

These new pants are flat fronted with a wider waistband and slightly narrower legs. I decided to leave off those curved patch pockets because I think that's more of a casual look and I wanted to be able to wear these to work. I also hemmed these short enough to wear flat shoes with them, which works because of the slightly narrower legs:

I still have those annoying wrinkles at the back of my legs though - the combination of my saddlebag thighs and prominent calves make fitting my legs an absolute nightmare. 

Now I am much happier with these pants, they are far more wearable in this form. I wore these to work with my new top and a white tailored jacket I made back in 2015 from an old Vogue pattern (posted here) - a far more interesting combination than my usual matching top and bottom suits!

The top I'm wearing in these photos is new too - it's the Style Arc Skye top. This top is super simple - it took me less than 3 hours to cut it out and sew it up at a sewing weekend away I went to in May, but it took me 3 weeks to sew a button on the back to finish it! My approach to sewing is so illogical sometimes....

image via Style Arc

The fabric I've used is a polyester woven fabric called 'Shooting Star' from Pitt Trading, which they still have on their on-line store if you're interested. I don't normally sew with polyester fabric because I don't like wearing it, but this graphic print really caught my eye. The fabric is really spongy though and it was quite difficult to press, although it doesn't wrinkle when wearing it so I guess that's the trade off! 

The top is essentially a front and a back with facings so it made up quite quickly. The hem has two curved facings which makes it far easier to finish off the rather than trying to turn up a hem.

I do think the method of sewing the top could be even more simplified though. The back is sewn in two pieces, with the facings sewn to the right side and flipped to the inside, and then the centre back seam sewn below the facings. The Burda method for this style of top - sewing the facing as one piece, stitching a long 'v' down the centre back and then cutting it before flipping it to the inside is far neater, quicker and means you can cut on the fold.

Likewise, the sleeves are finished by turning under twice, and then sewing the side seams from the marked point down which I think could be made simpler and neater simply by folding it over once only so that it goes from the sleeve hem into the pressed open seam allowances without the need for clipping.

The only change I would make to the pattern itself would be to lengthen it slightly. The sides curve up quite high, and if I'm not wearing something high waisted a bit of skin peeks out which is not a good look.

I'm happy that I made the effort to remake these pants and that it turned out far better than the original, which is fortunate because I have a few other projects I've made recently that I've stuffed up haven't turned out as well as expected and now need the same treatment!