During our July Meetup of the Pattern Review group at Fabric Place Basement I found a material that I fell in love with. Its a relatively thin corduroy material with just little bit of stretch. It's black with a white "wallpaper" pattern printed on it. Not sure what these patterns are actually called - it's not quite paisley, but has that same scroll like, curlicue design pattern. Whatever it's called I love it and therefore I love this material.
I knew as soon as I saw it that it had to be a pair of pants, but in the middle of summer I wasn't really interested in sewing long pants so the material got set aside for a couple of months.
Finally last week I decided it was time to pull the material out and make it up. I used the pants pattern I've been working on for the last couple of years.
I think I'm pretty nearly happy with this pattern now so there's really not much to say about these. There's two back patch pockets.
Two front slash pockets, that extend right into the fly, and a 2.5" wide waistband closed with three snaps.
I haven't had a great deal of sewjo for the last couple of weeks, so I decided to take this project slowly. All seams are french seamed, there are no exposed edges anywhere in these pants which is fantastic. I even remembered to interface the fly facing for once, and turned the fly around so that it opens on the right - its just easier that way.
I finished these pants this morning and have been wearing them all day. They have a very 70s vibe to them with the fabric pattern and the flares, but I love a good 70s flare so I'm happy with that.
As I said earlier my sewjo has not been overly high lately and I've been doing a bit of soul searching around that and I've come up with a theory. I think it's because I've been sewing a lot with other peoples patterns. Now I have no problems with using patterns - it's great and at times necessary, but I've decided it's not where my passion lies. I'm a engineer. An engineer by degree but more importantly an engineer by heart. I want to know HOW things work - WHY is a pattern the way it is. WHAT happens when I tweak here. It's the design (and I'm not talking fashion design here I'm talking engineering design) that makes my happy. I like taking an image that I have in my head and working out how to make that out of a flat piece of fabric.
So no more store bought patterns for me for a while - it's back to the drafting block I go.
These look great. I think your thinking is very insightful, too, and makes so much sense with all of your amazing creations from scratch. THAT must be why you make so many of your own patterns. I love working from a pattern because I like the finished product over the process, but I LOVE to watch people who are process-oriented think through things. It's really fascinating. Best wishes on reawakening your sewjo!
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