Sewing could happen

...it didn't today, but it 'could' soon !

If my blog is to be believed, I haven't done any sewing (hardly, anyway) since I last worked on pants in May/June last year. After a couple muslins and lots of tweaking I ended up with 2 wearable pairs of pants from Burda 04-2009-119 and a non-wearable muslin from the Hot Patterns Plain & Simple pattern. The last tweak on the HP pants was to take a vertical tuck in the front at the crotch to try to get rid of the fold at the inner leg. I never got around to cutting out a wearable version with all my adjustments.

Now, I need to start again because I lost weight all last year and the pants I spent so much time on last year DO NOT fit ! For the past week or so, the front fold and the underbutt wrinkles were on my mind. Apparently I'm in good company as I see the pants fitting threads have sprung to life again on PatternReview recently.

So, more reading, more thinking and yet still no sewing. I've been trying to see in my mind if a vertical fold would work better than all of these horizontal folds and tucks to eliminate the underbutt wrinkles. During all of this thinking, I came across a book I got about 12 years ago from Angelina Di Bello. She taught in Montreal for years and had quite an impressive working history. She trained in Italy and Montreal. Taught in Montreal for like 40 years or so and she also taught on tv on TV Ontario `Pins & Needles` as well as a couple of French tv shows. This spanned 35 years or more if I remember correctly.

Anyway, I own 2 of her books, one being, 'all about pants'. I've read through them but they are pretty hard to read. They are textbooks after all. On this pass through, I picked up that her fix for a flat butt is a vertical fix not a horizontal tuck, or wedge.

Today, I pulled out my last pattern version of 04-2009-119 and took a vertical tuck from the crotch to the knee. I also managed to lay out the legs and trace 1-1/2 pieces. My back had enough by then.

Here I am now...

This is 'the fix'...


...in other productivity notes...I baked today - hubby asked for cookies last week and I made 'em today - soft, raisin cookies - I don't imagine they'll last long !

04-2009-119 - a bit improved

*** a quick update after wearing them all day today (in normal shoes and socks !) Fabulously comfy ! ***

Had the day to myself and used it to finish the waistband, button, buttonhole and hems of the latest pants.



Text below is taken directly from my PR review - link to the real thing is on the sidebar.

Pattern Description: Trousers with curved four-piece waistband that are fitted at the waist and hips and gently flare to the hem.
I made this up 'as is' once and have since used it as a jumping off point for a narrower leg pant - possibly not my best decision.

Pattern Sizing: 34-46 - Originally, I cut a 44 waist blending to a 42 at the hip but as this is my 3rd tweak of the pattern, I have no idea what number it's at now for size. I do know it's smaller though !

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Nope

Were the instructions easy to follow? Burda ? Instructions ? Easy ?! I used Readers Digest, Singer's Pants that Fit, Sandra Betzina's fly tutorial as well as help from PR, specifically Sew4Fun's shifted leg recommendation and how-to.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? It's a great basic pant - if I could only get a handle on those wrinkles !

Fabric Used: Same as last time - I found 10yds of a lovely, cushy bottomweight to use for pants practice. I want to say RPL but it could be just poly. It wears VERY well throughout the day.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
Here we go...as I said, this is my 3rd go at this pattern. My adjustments to date include:

Design changes:
- added pockets - I used the pockets from Butterick 6420. This was my first attempt at franken-patterning and had a bit of a problem. One of the pieces was measured too small and I had to redo it. I'm pretty happy with them now. I did not cut a pocket stay and was a bit worried about gaping, but once the waistband went on, they don't gape hardly at all.

- narrowed legs by marking 1-1/4 inch on each side of the leg at the hem and blending up to 1/4 inch at 2 inches below crotch line.

Alterations:
- took in the the back darts to a 3/4 inch depth (but left them the original length)

- took in 1/4 inch on each side seam from waist blending down over the hip and flattened that curve a bit.

- lowered center back waist by 1/2 inch

- scooped crotch approx 1/4 inch

- sewed a 3/8 inch deeper seam on the straight part of the CB seam

- on the back inseam I shortened the crotch extension almost 3/4 inch

- to remove some of the under-butt wrinkles I removed a wedge from the back leg under the crotch - 1/2 inch

After posting for help both here and on the Fitting Woes board on PR (and receiving soooo much feedback), I decided to try Sew4Fun's suggestion of shifting the leg. I cut the back leg in two just under the crotch and shifted the leg towards the inseam. After the fact, I realized I should have shifted the leg at the KNEE not the crotch, but the muslin showed the wrinkles were noticeably less - Wow !

However, I saw the grainlines were really distorted.

During sewing up the pants, those crooked grainlines were really bugging me - the inseams were so far forward and the side seams so far to the back.

With 3/4 inch SAs to play with, I sewed the fronts to the backs with 3/4 SAs for the back pieces and 1/4inch SAs (yes, it's too tiny, but I did it anyway) for the front pieces. This helped recenter the grainlines and place the seams centered to my leg, but in the final pics, those wrinkles are back !


The muslin pic above does NOT have the waistband attached. That may be part of the problem and shifting the seam allowances may have had a detrimental effect - but I'm not sure. Should have left well enough alone and just made one change at a time.

I DO like the front views and the back view is much better when I stand with one leg forward - we all know those wrinkles are worse when we're standing still LOL.

Please ignore the fashion disaster - I would not normally wear bright fuschia socks with heels !

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? I do recommend the original pattern, but probably won't make it again as I prefer a narrower leg.

Conclusion: They're not perfect, but they're better than the previous pair, no worse than my RTW pants, and are wearable. I'm still working on a TNT pants pattern but I've learned a lot so far with these.


Now, I think I'm going to put this pattern aside for a bit. HP patterns have had good things said about them in regards to the L-shaped crotch for a flat butt. I've got Razor Sharp, Weekender Chinos, Plain & Simple and the Jean Jeanius patterns all in my stash. Plain & Simple would probably be the most logical one to start with, but the Razor Sharps are drawing my eye :-)

04-2009-119 - still working on 'em

I was hoping that this would be a 'completed project' post, but it was not to be. :-(

After 2 weeks, I finally got back to my pants. After getting so much great advice on the wrinkles, I decided go with the "shift the leg towards the inseam" suggested by
Sew4Fun and others. It did get rid of most of the wrinkles and looks a lot better EXCEPT the grainline is sloping towards the sideseam on the front and towards the inseam on the back. Rather than trash this pair, I'll take note for next time to shift both the front and back (below the knees) to see it that will fix up the grainline without affecting the butt wrinkles.

I only want to do one major change at a time, but will try the Low Butt Adjustment on one of the next pairs to see the difference.

Anyway, that muslin was done 2 weeks ago and taken apart ready for 'real' sewing - then work was busy and we were away for 4 days for Easter. Today, I was working on them for sure !

...however, not one to leave things alone, I decided to add pockets (do NOT like pants without 'em and I prefer a pocket for my pedometer rather than the clip on the waistband)

So, I started this morning with the pocket pieces from B6420.


I knew I didn't want to use this cushy fabric for the whole pocket so I went with cotton for the pocket bags with the grey pants fabric for that little side bit that shows.
I lost my last battle with fusible interfacing so I was very careful to not move anything til it all cooled - so far so good. The seam is stabilized - and stayed that way - bonus


Pockets all attached - looks fine, yes ? oh, wait it gets good.


Fly is in (really happy with the fly, Sandra Betzina's video is my go-to for these and it's getting easier), sideseams, inseam and crotch are all basted - still good , huh ? yup keep waiting - I so wish I'd posted my intentions this morning, you'd have all stopped me, I'm sure



Aha, here we go - the back part of the pocket bags with the pants fabric attached. I'm sure you all see the problem.


You know,right up til I figured out the problem, I was happy with these. I serged the edges of both the grey and the peach cotton and cut out the extra cotton from the back of the grey, so only one layer except where they join.


My duh moment - I had these all basted and put them on before I figured out just how 'too tiny' my grey side pieces are. The pockets gape some and it's horrible. Now the basting all comes out, the pockets come off and I'll replace the grey piece on each side with a larger one.


Finished pants to come - when? who knows?

Be careful what you ask for LOL!

This is why they're not TNT ! Isn't it awful, though - I don't mind wearing them to work but didn't want to post on the blog where you guys would see them and think 'OMG she goes out in public like that !' LOL :-)

So, here is the back in all its horribleness - I don't know how to fix it yet, but some of the comments on PatternReview have been that I could get rid of the diagonals by shifting the leg, but the horizontals are likely caused by my posture (locked knees) rather than the pattern - have to play with the pattern a bit - I need the space to sit and move but I may be able to lessen the horizontals a little (maybe a tiny Flat Butt Adjustment?).

I'll document the process and we'll see if it works.

L to R - original, first adjustments, two final versions (btw - they are all the same pants - just different lighting conditions)

04-2009-119 - 2nd version

This is what I did for the past 2 weekends. I liked my original version for dressy pants but don't like wide legs as a regular thing. Rather than start with a new pattern, I decided to try to narrow the legs on this pattern - in hindsight it may have been easier to start with a pattern closer to the shape I wanted.

Anyway, I narrowed the legs by 1.25 inches on both the inseam and outseam. The amount of wrinkles was staggering ! Tweaking included scooping the crotch .5 inch, shortening the back crotch extension by .75 inch, flattening the hip seam to get rid of the jodphur look, and loosening the knee by a total of 1" to see if it would help any of the wrinkles drop. They're comfy, but I'm hoping for some help to get rid of under-butt wrinkles so you're only getting the front shot :-)

You see it's not about me but all about my little girl ! LOL She was NOT giving up the spotlight !


I used Sandra Betzina's fly tutorial. Need to remember to make the underlap a bit wider though. ...and the bit of color ?


Cotton for the inner waistband and the underlap.

I'm happy with the wearability but they're not a TNT yet.

Some finished items

WAY past due LOL but here, finally are the finished BWOF 04-2009-119 pants. These were started back in November (or was it October?). Anyhoo, I fit and adjusted a muslin 3 times and after all that, these pants don't fit ! Smiles in the front, and extremely snug in the back and over the front of the thighs. Actually, the picture looks fine - I just can't sit down :-)

I've asked for a bit of help over on PR and while I had already done some of the suggestions, I did not give myself 1" seam allowances and also did not allow that the muslin may have stretched during the fitting process.

So for my next pair I'll recheck the measurements, both me and the pattern, give 1" SA's AND use a stretch fabric.



Since I'd started these as part of my 2009 Wardrobe I added this pic to that album. Wardrobe Pics

This week I also finished my third pattern from Wendy Johnson's Socks from the Toe Up (SFTTU) - Diagonal Lace. I really love the orange.


A few more sock pics here

Next up -

Sewing - adjust the pattern and start another 04-2009-119 pants. I have 2 pieces of stretch bottomweight fabric I picked up off the discount wall at Fabricville a while back - They were about $1.50/m & I ended up with 5 meters. I 'could' get 2 pants and a skirt from them.

Knitting - I cast on the Skew Socks this morning in a pink/white/grey yarn I picked up in Toronto last summer. It has quite a wide striping, so the sock doesn't have the look I was expecting but I think I'm going to like the finished pattern - I just hope they fit. The pattern is for a size or so smaller than me so I went up 2 needle sizes and crossed my fingers. I put off starting this project because I couldn't make heads or tails of the pattern while reading it and thought it would require sitting still and only concentrating on it and so it would be only doable at home. Well, the pattern is broken down into manageable sections and I'm now on the foot, a 2 row pattern repeat for another 4 inches or so. These will travel with me after all :-) They will also be finished one at a time - I didn't want to attempt mirror image, diagonal patterned socks 2 at a time !
Have a good week everybody...