That’s right folks, it’s my first attempt to make pants!

I have a really comfortable pair of pants that I have been wanting to copy. I thought they would be great for traveling if I made them long instead of cropped like the original pair.

However, this might be a little hard for me considering I’ve never made a real pair of pants before — you know, with a fly and all that. So, my thoughts turned to the Sew U book by Wendy Mullin. I have been wanting to make the pants from here as well, so I thought I would give them a go and if they turned out I could just forego doing the copying. Seemed simple enough! I dragged out my bolt of muslin, a spare spool of red thread, and a leftover dark green zipper (so stylish!).

I’ll just say that the first pair felt okay and was actually pretty comfortable to wear around, but would not be suitable to wear out (except maybe as jeans?) because they were pretty darn tight in the bum and thighs. (Sorry — no photos of that!) Not what I had in mind for trying to sleep on a plane, you know? So, plan B.

I drew out new pattern pieces that were both bumped up a size and had wider legs. For the first pair I had made a bare bones version — just the minimal so I could check the cut and the size. This time I added pockets and belt loops (dig that leftover red bias binding I put on the front pockets!).



I still haven’t decided about these. I’m wearing them around the house. I feel like they are fitting much better through the hips and thighs, but that the waist is now kind of gappy (you can’t really see this in the pictures). If allowed to do what they want, they start hanging kind of low. There are also some other minor things to be fixed — front pockets are really hard to get my hands in, back pockets are too high and too big, belt loops aren’t even and the ones in the front are too close to the edge of the pocket — but that stuff is all easy to adjust. It’s the cut of this version that I just can’t decide on.

One thing about this book is that it doesn’t always tell you how to do things, and I am very much used to detailed patterns that tell you every little thing. Sometimes I had to kind of wing it. Sometimes that worked out. Sometimes it didn’t (should have seen the zipper placement on the first pair!). And sometimes it tells you, but in some other random section that doesn’t always make sense to me. For example, I was trying to find info on how much seam allowance to use for the back pockets when I discovered on p. 59 — more than 100 pages away from the pants sewing instructions — that she thinks 5/8″ is too big so the patterns in the book are for 1/2″ seam allowance. Well, since it didn’t say one way or the other on the pages with the sewing instructions, I figured it was the standard 5/8″. No wonder the first ones were tight! I lost an entire inch in the hips by using 5/8″. I found it kind of frustrating to find this critical tidbit of info 2/3 of the way through the second pair. Making these pants from this book has certainly required a great deal of flipping pages and checking the index.

I would like to note for the record that I read this entire book just after I got it for Christmas last year, but there is no way I’m going to remember all these little things from scattered places in the book when it’s finally time to sew.

I’ll let you know how it turns out. Even if I do decide I like them well enough, I may not find fabric I like in a reasonable price range. I was at JoAnn’s yesterday and the selection was absolutely pitiful. I have a couple more places to check close by, but I am not hopeful. I could always try Britex in San Francisco. Good excuse to go to the city! But I’m not sure what the prices will be like there. Come to think of it, there are some other places in the city that I haven’t had a chance to check out yet that might have more fabrics for clothing….If I go to these, I promise to post a report!

And did I mention that my Viking has been making occasional loops in the bobbin thread so it’s in the shop (hopefully back today)? I’ve been having to go at this with my old Kenmore. I can not believe the things I made on this machine. Kinda like driving without power steering again!

Happy Thursday to you all!