Peacock Jeans

After my fitting issues with my last pair of pants I decided I wanted to try again but with a different pattern.

About 6 months ago I started work on a new pants pattern by creating a duct tape double of the bottom half of my body. I then cut my duct tape double down the sides and back trying to keep those lines as straight as possible, and then used these as the basis for my pattern. I created a leggings pattern out of it - but at the same time I also created a slim legged pants pattern. At the time I never got around to making up the resulting pattern, but I figured now was the time to try it out.

I cut the pattern pieces out of a piece of lightweight denim/lycra I had in stash and then the first thing I did was draw vertical and horizontal lines across the back side of my cut out pieces so I could try and get my pattern balanced. 

one of my early basting attempts before I got everything aligned.

I did much pinning, basting, unpicking, re-pinng and re-basting to try and get my pattern just right and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

 I still have some wrinkling under the bum, but I need that to be able to move. Everything else seems to be aligned...although if I were to make it again I would move the side seam forward by about 1" Whilst it's nice and straight its a bit too far back at the moment. 

Once I was happy with my pattern (and after transferring all my changes to my paper pattern) I started sewing my pants. All seams are sewn on the machine and then finished on the overlocker before being top stitched in a combination of neon green and blue thread. 

Since I did not cut on a fly I had to learn how to sew on an additional fly piece - I used the Grainline Studios tutorial for this and it turned out OK.

The front pockets were made with a freehand curve 

and the pocket bags extend to the front fly and right down to the thigh - I like a nice deep pocket!

The inside pocket bags are made from cotton batik.

Next up was the back pockets... I was recently introduced to the idea of using the free motion quilting foot on my sewing machine to embroider designs and I was really intrigued. I sketched out a fairly simple peacock design and tried it out of a piece of my denim that I stabilised with a medium weight interfacing. My first attempt was a bit sparse, but by my second attempt I was really impressed with how it all came together and I had the idea of using my design as a back pocket for a pair of jeans. I did a third peacock similar to the second and lined them both with a batik material to create jeans back patch pockets.

The peacock pockets were sewn on the back with a purple top thread so it didn't interfere with the peacock design.  

I really  really love these pockets.

The waistband I cut as my normal 4 piece wasitband.  I sewed th the outer waistband in place and sewed the inner wasitband to the outer along the top edge.  Rather than interfacing any of my waistband pieces, I stabilised it with some 1.5" wide knit elastic. I used a zig zag stitch to attach the elastic to the seam at the top of the wasitband and then top stitched around the top of the waistband stretching it as I went.

I then turned under the bottom of the inner waistband and top stitched it in places as well.  It looks all puckered when I'm not wearing it, but once the pants are on it creates a nice snug clean waistband finish.

Snaps in a matching neon green are used to close the waistband.

The length on this pattern was only just long enough so the bottom of the legs are overlocked and then turned under 1/4" and stitched in place.

I actually don't think the photos do these pants justice. I like these pants a lot more in person than I do the pictures. They seem to stay up a lot better than my last pair of pants and are really comfortable. I'm still not convinced about the slim leg on me - I feel like I need a little bit of flare to balance out my waist/bum/hips, but that'll be easy enough to modify and in the mean time I'll try out a new silhouette for me and enjoy my really cool peacocks.

Pretty Purple Pants

I've been feeling very uninspired by my winter wardrobe this year.  Everything is just very blah.  Just about everything I wear is in some shade of blue/grey/black. I need more colour in my life.  So I decided that I would made a new pair of pants in a bright colour.

I took myself off to the fabric store and went looking for pants fabric.  I found 2 that I really liked.  One as a teal green fabric - a stretch cotton sateen type fabric, and the second was a slightly heavier weight twill in purple.  I tossed up which one to make and in the end decided on the purple.  Really purple goes with just about everything in my wardrobe.  Reds, teals, greens, blues, they can all be paired with purple.  So I grabbed 2 yards of the purple twill and got to work.

(I also whipped up a the top shown here - same pattern as last time from poly sweater knit fabric I found on the same shopping expedition)

I went back and pulled out my pattern that I used to make my last true pair of jeans.

I modified the front pocket shape a bit from what I used last time - eliminated the yoke under the pocket and squared it off a bit but that's really the only changes that I made to the flat pattern.

I then got started sewing. I started with some decorative stitching on the back pocket.  I bought a burgundy topstitching thread and  threaded my machine with both that and a gold metallic thread and stitched my design onto the back pockets.  It took a bit to get the thread tension right and it never did turn out perfectly, but after ripping it all out once and sewing it a second time I learned to live with it. 

I then did some more decorative top stitching along the back of the front pocket.

I sewed in the front pockets using french  seams, and did the front fly.

I then  moved onto joining the back pieces. I took my time and taught myself haw to do true flat fell seams.  Not as tricky as I had supposed.  I flat felled the back crotch seam and then sewed on the back yoke using the same flat fell  technique.

 I then basted together the side and inside leg seams to test the fit.

I took the side and inside leg seams in a bit from the hips/crotch down to the knees just to get the shape that I was looking for.  Everything else was good except for the yoke.  There was way too much fabric at the top of the yoke.  I pinched out the excess then transferred that change to my pattern piece and cut out a whole new yoke.  The I had to unpick all the flat fell stitching of the yoke to take the old one off and put the new on.  That was not fun.  And then I ran out of top stitching thread.  I didn't want to wait a week till I could get back to the fabric store so I decided that I would just use normal thread in the same burgundy colour.  But this time instead of adding the gold metallic thread at the same time I did all the stitching in burgundy first and then went back over it on the gold. I liked the look of this a lot better, but not enough to rip out everything I'd done and start over!

I flat felled the inside leg seams (with just burgandy - no metallics) and then just stitched and serged the outside leg seams top stitching in just burgandy down the side seam to the bottom of the pocket for extra stability.

Then I tried on my pants and realised just how scratchy that gold metallic thread was.  It's really not comfortable and there was quite a bit of it through my pants.  At this point I decided that I wanted to line my pants.  That would also make them just a little bit warmer which is never a bad thing in my opinion,  I went through my stash and decided to line them in jersey.  I had scraps of two different blue jerseys that I could use up.  I had to do a bit of piecing to get my pattern to fit but I did it in the end.  In the end I could possibly have skipped some of the piecing - as due to the vertical stretch in the jersey I ended up taking a good three inches off the length of the lining.

 I joined the outer and lining at the waist and then put the waistband on.  I cut both the inner and outer layers of the waistband from the purple fabric. The inner waistband I interfaced with a heavy weight interfacing the the outer with a medium weight interfacing.  I even hand basted the bottom of the waistband down before top stitching to make sure it was a good as I could get it.  I really wanted to using my mettalic top stitching around the waistband too but decided that the scratchyness just wasn't on so the waistband is top stitched in red only.

I used a real jeans button for once and therefore had to make a button hole.  As per ususal my trial button hole worked perfectly, but once i moved onto the real fabric it all fell apart and I ahd to unpick and redo it about 3 times before I said enough is enough and just made it work.

The last tricky bit was getting the lining to fit around the zipper without interfering.  It took a bit of working - and taking the fly shield off and putting it on the opposite side as I realised it was all wrong way around.  It's a bit disappointing in the end I went to a lot of trouble to finish the insides of these pants beautifully and then went and covered it all up with a lining.

These pants felt quite tight when I first put them on.  I realised that the flat sell seams take up more seam allowance than my standard seams so they ended up a bit more snug than I hoped.  But after wearing them for a while they loosened off and feel quite good.  I washed them once and line dried them and they are now quite loose - I may have to throw them in the dryer next time and see how they come out.  I've left the bottom cuff basted on so that if they do shrink lengthways (which is something that I seem to have a problem with with pants) I can let down the cuff for some extra length.

However.....There are a few problem with these pants.  The first you can see in these photos - this fabric is terribly wrinkly. I did in fact iron these pants about 10 mins before taking these photos and you can see just how bad the wrinkles are.  That's not something that I care about in everyday, but I really hate the photos of these pants.

The second problem is that it  seems from the photos that the wrinkles under the bum at the back are back - I don't know why - the last time I made this pattern I didn't have this problem.  But there is definitely an issue with that outer back panel...

And finally the biggest problem is that the minute I start walking they slide down at the back and I have to hitch them back into place.  I wish I could figure out why this happens -  I think it has to have something to do with the back crotch curve but I'm not quite sure what. 

It looks like I'm going to have to do some more fitting work.

But in the mean time I now have a very bright cool new pair of pants. They are warm and snugly thanks to the lining and I really love the colour of these, they are very easy to match with the rest of my wardrobe - Bring on more colour! 

Maybe I can buy a little more of this fabric and turn these into a pair of overalls/bibs - that should keep them from sliding down at the back.