When I made the original Ochre Ophelia Overalls (Decades of Style 108), I immediately became interested in making some pants out of the pattern too. It took some time, but I finally got around to it. I chose a dark denim-y fabric of which the origins are unclear to me. From the original Ophelia I knew that I didn’t need the button plackets, so I left those off. The only pattern changes to make were to cut down the back pieces so that there was no strap section. I just left off the front bib pieces. There might have been more minor adjustments to the height of the top edge, but I don’t recall.
After putting all the pieces on my fabric and cutting them out, I set to work. I followed the instructions apart from installing the plackets, the sides were just sewn shut. For the topstitching, I wanted to have a contrasting thread along the major seams. Although, I didn’t feel like rethreading my machine every time, so I grabbed the hand crank from 1901 and threaded that one. The width of the foot on that on made for a lovely distance for the top stitching.
To finish the waistband, I added a wide bias tape and stitched that down with my topstitch. I added the straps with d-rings and an extra one to hang my keys from. These pockets are again large and on the side and I love them. These pants are a lot stiffer than the Overalls, so they wear a little bit differently. I’ve also needed to develop a different technique for quick undoing of the sides, since these straps are stiffer too. All in all, I still like these and plan to wear them when the weather is nicer.
So I do not remember how I got to the website of Schnittmuster Berlin and found the Nuru pants, but I somehow did. I checked the images and thought they looked cool with the interesting yoke and wide legs. So, I decided to purchase the pattern and got to work.
I found some slightly stretchy grey fabric in the hoard and decided that was going to be nice to wear. Then I printed the pattern, put it all together and cut out the size I thought I needed. The pieces were cut from the fabric and I followed the instructions for the sewing. The pocket and yoke construction were fascinating but worked well and while I ignored some parts of the waistband construction, I love how it turned out.
However, once done, the whole thing is just a little bit too large. I can’t tell if it’s just the stretch content that’s messing it up, or whether I just made a size too large or something else entirely. I hoped to fix it by adding some buttonhole elastic along the back edge but this isn’t sufficient. That might also be because I’m so used to wearing pants with the waistline at my waist, that this model with a relatively low waistline at the front is messing me up. I do love the fabric but because of the weird side seams, I don’t think it’ll be trivial to take it in. I may have to resort to suspenders to wear this one…
Historically inspired pants that can turn into a skirt with an added panel.
I was thinking about secret pants, also known as split skirts, for a while. It probably started some time during covid lockdowns when I got into the historical sewing. It took a bit longer to commit, but in June of 2022, I purchased the Laughing Moon Mercantile #150 Split Skirt pattern. Printed it, cut it out, took all the relevant steps and then.. left it. The pattern was in the corner of my living room, waiting for me to decide which fabric I wanted to use.
It took two years and a bit to actually get myself in gear to make this thing. I chose a bottom weight brown fabric that I do not remember purchasing. Maybe a de-stash gift too? I made some minor changes to the pattern. The pockets seemed very shallow, so I added more length and the legs were very long so they were shortened. I added back pockets and belt loops. The fall front pieces were cut partially out of lining because they would not fit on the fabric anymore and they are hidden anyway.
All the panels were serged and then sewn together on the Pfaff. I had to remove about three centimeters from the top of the split skirt to make them fit near my waist. The front panel was supposed to be lined with lining fabric, but that didn’t seem smart, so I chose to use the main fabric too. The buttons came from my stash, one of the few options that looked old-ish and that I had enough of. All the buttonholes were made with the Greist buttonholer on the 1901 machine. It took a while, but the results are so satisfying. One of the back pockets was absolutely perfect flat, but my butt isn’t flat so it does gape a little when worn – very disappointing.
Perfect pocket
The first pass of the buttons through the buttonholes was a struggle, but it’s much easier after a few goes. I like the fall front method of closure on these pants. It gives a little extra security. Since the legs are quite wide, I do have to pay attention to not get stuck on the pedals of my bike, but it’s not been a problem yet. All in all, this thing is fun to wear, with or without the front flap buttoned on. I do now also have an incentive to make a top that fits with this. There isn’t as much brown in my cupboard as I thought.
After the dark dungarees, there was enough fabric left for pants. Since pants are still my favourite thing to wear, more pants seemed like a great idea. Never mind that I now have two stacks of pants/jumpsuits in my cupboard. I used the same pattern for these as for the dungarees, with some small changes. I tried to slim the legs a smidge by eliminating the original pleat/crease, removed the insane hem allowance and added welt pockets to the back.
After I started sewing, it turned out that not all of my cutting changes worked out. The plan was to have double darts in the back for shaping, ending before the pocket. Somehow that led to a very pointy butt, so to solve the width issue in the back, I had to add some buttonhole elastic to the waistband to make it fit. This also meant that I got to bust out my buttonholer again to make the buttonholes in the inside waistband. This time I chose a longish rounded buttonhole and added two buttons.
I had hoped to eliminate most of the pleat at the front and replace it with a dart, but it still needed a bit more dart than I anticipated. It turned out well enough though, so I’m not sure I care too much. These pants close with a zip in the left side. It’s not in these pictures, but I did add a hook an eye on the inside just for some extra security.
The hem is less deep but still works well. I really like wearing these pants and their dungaree sibling. Extremely comfortable, great belt loops, nice pockets, good stretch, goes with everything.. Fantastic project if I do say so myself.
Cosy dungarees, just finished in time for winter to end.
I bought some corduroy on a market a year or so ago and was like: pants for me! But then I brought it home and washed it and discovered that I hadn’t bought enough because corduroy has a nap and it looked silly to put things on sideways *insert sad trumpet noises*. Some time later, I went back to the fabric market and found a different dark corduroy (it’s not black, but it’s not .. not?). I didn’t take any chances and bought more than enough for dungarees so I could make those, and more!
The dungarees are based mostly on the Burda Style 12/2022 model 1 pants pattern (from these plaid pants) and on this shorts dungaree flap. I made some changes to the pattern that I don’t particularly recall, although I remember changing it to a side opening. I included jeans style back pockets and the same pocket shape on the front of the bib-flap. This corduroy is very stretchy so I was afraid to use a woven fabric for the lining pieces and grabbed a knit in the end. The bib, pockets, waistband and straps are lined with this stripy knit fabric.
There were two problems with getting this thing done: making choices & executing them and getting the buttonholer to work . I hemmed and hawed over the bib shape, the pocket shape and placement, how to put it on the fabric, everything. This makes a project take so much longer than expected, also when it takes you a week or so between the major steps to actually finish it. Throw it in the corner when you haven’t exactly figured out how to get that pesky waistband attached, how to hem it, stuff like that.
The other major thing was that I wanted to add the straps using buttons and I wanted my imported Greist buttonholer to do the work for me. Those templates would make it so easy to make a pretty (keyhole) buttonhole, I thought. It took trying it out on three machines, a lot of cursing and finally taking it apart and cleaning the sticky grease out to get it to function. I’m so very proud that I managed though (this was my third try). It’s now stored next to the one machine that could make it work, a 1901 Singer 28, hand-crank vibrating shuttle sewing machine. Check out how it makes buttonholes!
All in all, I really like these pants. The corduroy is comfortable, the straps are nice, dungarees are generally great. The only downside is what to wear underneath, so I’m now knitting a ‘shorter’ sweater that can go under the dungarees. Got to keep busy after all!
While I was knitting the Frog, I also investigated the possibility of making Mr Toad by Claire Garland. The toad is meant to be a standing figure that you also make clothes for. After finishing the frog, there was still a lot of yarn left. So I thought I’d use the toad green yarn for an actual toad. The method for making him is very interesting and creates a very strange shape.
Getting those legs to work out wasn’t very easy. You need to wrap them around to the front and then sew them together. One of them ended up a bit higher than the other for some reason. I included wire so he can actually stand up. Still, he also doesn’t look like the original image. He’s way too fat. I didn’t feel like pulling stuffing out (I also would’t know how, he was already so sewn together). So when I wanted to make his clothes, the patterns included didn’t really work out.
For his pants, I chose to use the knitting machine because it would all be straight or near straight anyway. The yarn was leftover from a pair of socks. I completely modified the pants pattern and tried and frogged the pieces several times before they fit and looked decent. I should still make a top of some sort for him. However, I’m not nearly as much a fan of him as I am of the frog, so I’m having a hard time committing to making more for him. He’ll stay pajamaed for a while yet, I think.
As a follow up to the previous post about the cape cover, these are the pants worn for graduation in January. I’d been leafing through pattern magazines and found a pants style I really liked in Burda Style 12/2022 model 1. It’s a wide legged pant with a diagonal overlap waistband. The legs have vertical pressed creases. I chose to do a Burda Style pant because it seems like those crotches work much better for me than Simplicity or Knipmode crotches.
As I was using a nice thick black and white plaid fabric for the pants, getting it cut out involved some real head scratching. I wanted to make sure that the plaid lines matched along the side seams and inseam, but also pockets and closure flaps. Since the bit of fabric that I had wasn’t overly large, I ended up cutting on the cross grain. The pattern didn’t come with back pockets, but I substituted some in anyway. Once I had all the pieces cut, I set to sewing. This went fairly smoothly until the instructions for the closure flap. I still don’t know what they actually wanted me to do, but I’ve done something and it closes, so I’m calling it good. It also doesn’t entirely match plaid there, but I’ve done a good enough job so I don’t think it’s super noticeable.
The front pockets are pretty regular. I followed all the normal steps and made sure to match my plaid there for maximum style points. For the back pockets, I followed a tutorial by Sewing Divas for non-sagging pockets. This involves making an extra fold in the side of the pocket closest to the wearer. So far, it seems to work. There are single welt pockets, and they are going over a dart. This means that you’ll see some slight discrepancy in the width of the plaid above and below the welt. This was unavoidable and I tried my best. I still think they came out pretty well.
All the insides are finished with the serger, so no fraying expected. The pockets are nice and deep. The fabric is lovely and soft. The plaid matches where I want it and overall I’m very happy with these pants. Did I figure out after the fact that they look quite similar to my other black/white plaid pants? Yes, I did. Do I care? Also not. They did require a bit of alteration after I’d worn it to graduation because I’d hemmed it a little short. That’s been fixed now, so they go out and about with me quite regularly.
When you make pants and then wait weeks to actually complete them.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine celebrated her birthday in Rotterdam. Rotterdam has a large market on Saturday which also has a few fabric stalls, so I convinced another friend to come with me to the market to look at some fabrics. I fell in love with a sneaky sweatpants fabric with a black, white and grey plaid on it. The fabric feels very similar to the striped one I used for these pants, so it had to come home with me.
FrontBack (pockets are nearly invisible!)Side
Determined not to let the fabric languish in the hoard for too long, I set out to make my new pants pretty swiftly. Since the plaid is unbalanced, it would never be possible to make symmetrical pants, but I did decide to do my best to plaid match the horizontal where possible. I settled on a pattern that had arrived recently in the Simplicity Naaimode magazine (nr. 45), model 30 also known as Simplicity S8956, which was fairly wide legged, with a pleat and pockets in the front and a shaped waistband. All the pieces were cut out and sewn together. The only changes I made were to add an extra belt loop for my keys and to cuff them as they were seriously long.
Shaped waistbandCuffs! Barely visible but stillBack pockets!
So that meant that this thing was finished right? Nope, wrong. The front pockets that come with the pattern are really not very big, and while I was debating the entire time whether to add back pockets, I decided not to put them in at the time I worked on it. So when I’d finished the pants as per the project on the 27th of September, they then lay in my ‘to work on’ pile until last Sunday, waiting for back pockets. I chose to do single welt pockets for the first time and used a different kind of fabric for the pocket back to hopefully alleviate some of the denseness that welt pockets can create. I probably should have made them a little bit wider, but they did turn out well and function as pockets! Will even fit my phone, so job’s finally done.
In the month I wear mostly skirts, I chose to add to my pant collection by hacking some bloomers.
While I’ve been doing quite a lot of historical-ish and plush sewing, I also felt that my current wardrobe had some gaps. I wanted more long pants, preferably some jeans. I also wanted to try the Cycling Bloomers pattern from Bikes & Bloomers some more, since I liked the width, the pockets and the back waist points. So I grabbed some paper and some tape and made a new frankenpattern. Then I grabbed some weird blue fabric that drapes too much to be real denim and got to work.
Front
Side
Back
The pattern came together easily although there was again some pulling along the front pockets. This time I fixed it by adding a tab and a popper. If I do make it again, and I’m expecting that I will, I’m going to try to add some width along the front so it doesn’t pull as bad and make a single welt pocket. Hopefully that’ll deal with the issue. I did add some back pockets to this version and I used the free pattern by The Last Stitch for those. Lastly, I added some belt loops to the sides to hang keys on. If we can ever go back to the office, I need to leave my keys somewhere.
Belt loop, closure and pocket
Back pocket
Waist tab
They are quite long (6.5 cm in the hem) but I guess I’ll see how they hold up or if it shrinks up. I’m a little afraid that the fabric pulls out of shape easily, but there’s only one way to figure it out and that is to keep wearing it. So far, it’s been very comfortable! I’m not sure yet if it will replace my normal pants pattern. This one does take a lot more fabric due to the width in the legs. I guess I’ll keep you posted.
Dressing head to toe in red with white dots is going to be a staple around here.
So I was on the market two weeks ago, and saw a sign saying 2€/m on a bolt of fabric. The fabric had a white fluffy back and the front was red with white-ish dots. The market lady explained that some of the dots had red dye running in, so that’s why it was so cheap. I decided that I didn’t care too much and got myself two yards. Two laundry cycles and several bright red colour catchers later and I got to work. I’d decided that I wanted to make a sweater, so I layed out my Frankensteined pattern and found I had a lot left. Then I decided that I would try to see if I could also get some pants out of the fabric and create the ultimate stay-at-home-outfit.
Head to Toad
Three hours later I had figured out a way to get all my pattern pieces bar one neatly onto the fabric. The patterns included pattern 44 from Simplicity Naaimode 24, aka Simplicity 1165, which I cannot figure out if I ever made before but I had it drawn out in my pattern stash. I excluded the waistband for that one. For the sweater, the shortened version of Lekala 4742 (flamingo-style here) and the hood from the Nelly sweater by Pattydoo. Only the hood-front needed to be pieced. I approached it in a similar manner as when I pieced the hood for the dinosaur coat. After finishing the pants, I learned that there was excess at the bottom and I might have been able to fit all the pieces on normally if I’d shortened the legs by 4 cm, ah well, live and learn.
Anyway, the first time I made Lekala 4742, here, the hood could fit at least two of my head in it. I didn’t feel like repatterning the entire thing so I stole the hood from a sweater I had been working on before; Nelly. I put the Nelly neckline on the Lekala pattern and adjusted it that way. This worked out wonderfully. Originally, the Nelly hood is supposed to have a lining, but I liked the fluffy white of mine so I just made a facing. I took the sweater in along the sides. And to combat hemming, I added a cuff to the arms and the bottom.
Just pants
Then onto the pants, just sewed them up as I would normally. Then put them on and could fit a second human in the back. So I resewed the crotch seam, see the red line in my wonderful paint image for some potential clarification (?). In total, I took out 8 cm on either side of the center back. Then I added a waistband of the same cuff material as the sweater, threaded some elastic through it, hemmed the legs and called it a day.
I titled this post Head to Toad, that’s because I had planned to have this thing done for halloween and just be a mushroom for the day. That clearly failed as I finished it exactly a week later. However, when I was telling my colleagues about the plan, and showed them the mostly finished sweater, one told me I looked like Toad – now, this is not completely correct. The other one said I would be Head to Toe(d) in this mushroom suit. I thought the pun was too brilliant to pass up, so Head to Toad it is! I’ve been wearing the finished thing for the past 2 hours now, and I love it. I shall be a mushroom for many weekend days to come!
No such thing as too much red and white, right?!
Active filters:
Category
Tag
Post Type
·
No results found. Try a different search.
No results match these filters. Try clearing some, or searching for something else.
