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.
Pockets!