Pants – Page 2 – Hopefully Creative

Blue Pants

I wanted to gift a pair of pajama pants to a family member recently. So I found a free pattern online from Life Sew Savory in size L. Once it was printed out, it was so large that the only fabric I could realistically use was the blue mask fabric. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a large pattern piece – there are no side seams, so that’s why it’s so enormous. I added a few centimetres to the bottom to increase the length, although I’m not sure if it was needed.

In the end, I put in the elastic at a later point in time based on a different pair of pants of the recipient. I haven’t yet seen if these actually fit, so that’s still a guess. For now, I’m quite happy that I did manage to finish them and I still love the colour.

Compared to me, they are certainly quite large…

Secret Sweatpants

First of all, happy new year!

Clearly I didn’t make the deadline of posting all the stuff I’ve still been making in 2019, so that’s what’s coming up now.

These secret sweatpants started with some stretch fabric that I found on the market in Goes. It’s got black & white pinstripes on the one side and grey on the other side. It felt very nice, so I decided to make some easy pants out of it. I used my regular pants pattern but decided to add a triangular yoke at the front. The pockets are the reverse of the fabric and there is a bit of elastic along the top edge to keep them on. So while it looks quite fancy, it feels like I’m wearing sweatpants – double win.

It’s proven to be impossible to take nice pictures because late night when I finished them and currently too lazy to get them out again. So there you go.

Next up – Buttons, Knitting, Sewing and hopefully a finished coat soon.

Three-Piece Suit (part 2 – Pants)

After finishing the vest, I went straight into the pants. I chose to use the same base as the plaid pantsuit, with the regular back pockets. The main difference I wanted was to have some form of interesting closure. I’ve been looking at men’s pants on pinterest to find some nice details. I settled for a cross over long strap like this.

After figuring out the pattern, the first thing that happened was that I found out that my fabric is less wide than the fabric I normally use for pants. As such, it was a little more effort to lay out as I couldn’t align the bottoms of front and back with each other. I also cut the front waistband twice as long as it should be, without shaping it. I’d planned to cut it to shape once it was on my pants.

I used the same lining as for the vest and went on to sew the thing together. I used most the same methods as for all the other pants I made, but for some reason, it turned out smaller than normally? Not sure how that happened, so I let the side seams out a little, which fixed most of the problems. I’ve been using a tutorial for the fly front with a separate fly shield, it’s here.

After attaching the waistband, I needed to figure out how to shape it correctly and get the eyelet for the strap worked out. Can’t remember exactly how, but it seems to have worked fairly decently. The only downside of these pants is that there are a few wrinkles below the waistband which pull just a little to the outside. However, I’ve decided that I can live with it and that I’m probably the only one who will see it in real life.

The pants feel comfortable on. I’ve worn the vest and the pants together recently with a button down shirt and the purple plaid jacket and it looks so cool. Fake it till you make it starts with the outfit, right?!

Plaid Sparkle Trousers

The plan was to create a pair of pants with some gentleman’s old style details. While most of the details are there, they aren’t visible due to the choice of fabric. I will probably be attempting this again in the future with a fabric that is somewhat solid in colour. The details I wanted to include were triangular pocket tabs (here), double closure tabs (here) which did not end up in the final product and fish tail back (here and here) of which a minimized version was included.

The basis was again the Swordfish Pants pattern, which at one point started as Helena Culottes. It has since been heavily modified for all kinds of pants. For this iteration, I increased the back height to get a fish tail back. While I was aware that I needed to have darts, I did not expect to need to take in as much as I did, so the fish tail is much less pronounced than I wanted. I also made the pocket tab change on the pattern which did work, although you cannot see it very well. The double closure tabs did not work at all, because the pants are not mirrored on the same center line, so the tabs I cut on did not match. Another solution to close the thing was chosen and implemented.

The fabric is again a plaid fabric with silver threads through it. There’s horizontal matching along the side seams, front and back and it’s mirrored. I’m quite proud of all the matching that is going on. This means that the details are invisible, but it gives me a sense of accomplishment that I can actually plan stuff.

It’s been worn for the first time yesterday and it was quite enjoyable all around. No terrible scratching yet, so that’s terrific!

Pants: Red, Long, Swordfish Butt

It was Hot in Holland. Severely hot, being unable to fully function-hot, melting from just sitting and watching tv-hot. Still, I managed to get my ass into some gear and create a pair of pants. I seem to be getting better at this whole ‘finishing the insides’ business of making pants. There are no exposed seams in this thing anywhere. The sides were finished with the selvage and the majority of the seams was flat-felled or otherwise enclosed. The pockets were edged with the excess of the pocket lining. Doesn’t it look pretty!

The pattern was a version of the plaid pants pattern that I’ve been using. The changes included slimming the legs a little and putting a curved waistband from another pattern on it. There are also a number of belt loops and the pockets are made from the woodland fabric. The closure is a snap and a hook & bar. I needed to add back pockets, and I figured I’d put a nice design on them. So I looked all around the internet and discovered a series of pictures of animals drawn in one line. I really liked the swordfish, so I decided to embroider two of those on my butt pockets.

I wore them to work, and they stayed up all right. A bit warm but that’s because it was very hot here.

Next up, Pants: Red, Short, Striped.

Circle Culottes

At some point I found an old blog post from Petit Main Sauvage about half-circle culottes. I had just bought quite a length of blue fabric with ivy leaves on and figured this would be the perfect time to create full length half circle culottes following the tutorial. So did just that. I also wanted to add some straps to both combat stretching from the waist being on the bias and because I like dungaree type things. Initially the idea was to make a full apron top-thing, but that looked ridiculous so it was scrapped.

I’d finished most of it in January, but then it needed hemming and I sort of chucked it in the corner until I could find the courage to do that. So it took me until May to find that courage. I had most of the straps already sewn, but I needed an attachment method. I finally decided on a cross-strap option with elastic in the middle. Attached to the pants with buttons on the inside. Once I had it finished, I took it out for a short jaunt to the shops. I discovered that the straps needed some shortening and the facing attached more soundly to the inside of the pants, so I made another button-hole and managed to fix those problems.

Now, I just need to find occasions to wear this. I think they might be quite comfortable in summer because you can get quite a nice breeze going. We’ll see how that goes.\

Plaid Pants – Blue

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.

Ceremonial Jumpsuit

Yesterday we opened the Academic Year. This is an event in which new students are welcomed to the community, and teachers show up in black gowns. I try to make a fun thing for the events that we do, but this time I wanted something different. I have been dreaming of a jumpsuit for a while now, and I figured that yesterday’s celebration would be a fine occasion (and necessary kick-in-the-butt) to get my ass in gear and get cutting.

I decided to check out my stash for some fabric. I eventually found some fabric that is very stable, but very stretchy in one direction. It was the only bit that I thought was large enough really, as it turned out, it was also perfect. The pants pattern I used is the free Helena Culottes pattern by Ralph Pink, which by now has seen numerous alterations. I started by cutting out the pants as frugally as I could, using some striped fabric as used before in a shirt as pocket fronts. I also changed the grainline a little, because in the past there have always been weird folds in the back leg. The size of the pocket opening was also decreased, significantly, and a bit of the top was left off.

For the top, I first gathered some inspiration on Pinterest (e.g. this and this and this). It was quickly determined that I should do a v-neck, preferably with some overlap and maybe even sleevesies (church event and all). So searching though my pattern stash, I found a pattern in one of my old Burda magazines with all those characteristics (Burda Style 11-2007, pattern 112). Unfortunately the pattern only came in a size 76 (size 38 for long people), and I’m both smaller than size 38 and short. On the pattern piece you can see three (or four) different line colours to distinguish between the different sizes to create an approximate size 36. I then pinned the overlap together at the center and pulled the points down until they would fit my front and not be overly large. Sewed that all to the waistband that I sewed on to the inside, such that the inside waistband would be clean finished.

I then added the second layer of the waistband and zig-zagged that on. I used a zig-zag stitch, because I found out that the fabric was so stretchy, that I was able to pull it over my butt without having to use closures! This makes it approximately the easiest thing to put on and be ready to go out. It’s easier than most knit dresses, as it has pockets!

The top is a little wide-set, so to not show bra straps (and it being.. 9 o’clock on the night before the event), I found some fur-hooks to hook the straps behind and keep them from view. They do double duty with keeping the top on my shoulders. Although I have to take care when putting bags over my shoulder as that can dig in.

So now for the full length view, in front of my closet. These pictures are unfortunately not the best ever. So I’m hoping that event photographers managed to get me once with some better light and stuff. I got a number of compliments (and people being surprised that I made it) which makes me very happy. It was worn to work today and it’s perfectly fine to do an entire day of office work in too.

Conclusion, I really, really like it and will enjoy wearing it in the future!

Jeans!

At some point in the past, I found some actual jeans fabric in a second-hand store and brought it home. A couple of weeks ago, I figured it was time to turn the fabric into actual pants. I washed the fabric beforehand, to get rid of some of the residual ink. However, I did get somewhat smurf-like hands throughout the project. It’s definitely destined for some similar colour laundry.

The pattern was a bootcut pants pattern, from the Burda Easy Fashion Spring/Summer 2009 edition, model number 3. I made a number of changes, including different pockets, more of a yoke, a higher waistband and some on the fly things. The back isn’t perfect, but the front is fairly nice and this thing does not sag after a wear. There are definite improvements possible, but it doesn’t seem to be worse than my store-bought jeans. Prepare for pictures…

Front Back

There is a quite severe yoke, and angled pockets as other ones would not have fit.

Yoke Pocket

The front also has pockets which I closed up a little after sewing to create more storage space. I also added a plaid as the pocket lining.

Pocket Pocket

It closes with a hook and bar type closure and again has the plaid as the lining.

Close Inside

This experiment was successful enough to try something similar again. I would like to create some pants that are a little tighter around the legs and flare out later. We’ll see if it happens!

Green Plaid Pants

More everyday pants have definitely been on the list for a while now. Currently, I tend to wear pants on a daily basis, but I only have a few pairs that I’ve made myself. I seem to gravitate to the three pairs of bought (old) jeans that I own. I want to change that by giving myself more options. Important aspects for pants to me are belt loops for my keys, back pockets for the access card to work and that they stay up and don’t sag too much.

This plan started one day, when, after about the 5th time I saw some plaid fabrics, I decided that I just needed to have a cut in green and in red. The green was destined to become these pants, while I’m hoping I’ll be able to make a nice jacket with the red stuff (which may or may not have green plaid elbow patches in the future). The cuts are probably less than 2 meters long, so I knew I didn’t have much wiggle room.

I also knew that in the pants I wanted to have the plaids matched horizontally for sure, and vertically as much as possible. The plaid is not balanced in that one of the white stripes is lighter than the other. I knew symmetry was not going to be possible. The pattern I chose was the Helena Culottes pattern by Ralph Pink which I made before here. I did decrease the height at the top, such that it is more at my natural waist now. The waistband pattern from another pair of pants was fetched and added to the top, which worked out better than expected.

Front Back

The pants have front pockets, a front zipper opening and double welt back pockets. I wore it to work today and it stayed up for the entire day. I think this is the first pair of pants that, while not being too tight, fit at the top and stay in the correct place. This may also be because there is no stretch in this fabric.

Inside front Inside back

Left the front and right the back of the pants on the inside. I matched plaids all along the legs too and they turned out really well. The fabric is fairly thick, with one side that is fuzzy and one size that is not. I chose to have the fuzzy side on the inside because I thought it would feel better on the skin. I also thought that because it is so thick, it would be better if I would use a different fabric for parts of the pocket lining and waistband. Some man’s button down shirt in a green/blue/yellow plaid seemed thin enough to work. I cut the hidden bits of the pockets from them. The backs of the pockets needed to be the original fabric (mostly) because I wanted to match the plaids where possible. It worked, also in the welt pockets.

Front pants Back pants

I like them, I wore them the entire day and I felt really comfortable, and warm! Now to see if they will survive my living and laundry schedule!

On to the next pair…

Tag: Pants