So somewhere in 2017, I bought a length of black-blue-red plaid to make another set of plaid pants. I reworked my original pattern a little bit – slimming and straightening the legs a little and copying all the pattern pieces onto tracing paper since the original is still the boob-height pattern of the Helena Culottes. Now I have all pattern pieces that fit together well. Apart from one thing, but we’ll get to that.
Cutting out the pieces taking care to pattern match, where possible and sewing it together all went pretty well. I used the blue origami cats for pockets/waistband/zipper guard (I thought it was funny to have more cats behind the zip). The only problem was the waistband. I clearly did not use a well-fitting waistband so I had to make numerous adaptations. This is the one major aspect that I need to improve for the next version (there will probably be a next version).
I had worn it with hooks & eyes and the too wide waistband, but that was not a true success. So I shortened it a little, and replaced the hooks & eyes with a jeans type button – lesson 2: shorter shank next time. I also took more chunks out of the waistband to get it to fit better. Now it works really quite well, I finished it right before Christmas and I enjoy wearing it.
These new plaid pants also allow me to wear my red sweaters with them. My other plaid pants are green, and I don’t want to look like Christmas in July, so that was not an option. This was a large part of the reason for picking up the fabric. Also just because it is plain and I seem to have a fond liking for plaid. I still have a length of red plaid in the stash, but I was planning on making a jacket out of that.. We’ll see whether that ever happens.
