Next step in the Pant journey

Monday I took out my HP pants patterns and measured the patterns - Weekender Chinos and Razor Sharps - WIDE pants - and by the looks of it drafted VERY large - I expect to have to cut about a 12 or 14 but my measurements fit somewhere in the size 8 range - WoW ! (hmm, should probably clarify that – based on the measurement chart, I fit into the 12-14 range – it’s just that the pattern runs large enough that after flat measuring the pattern pieces their size 8 is about where I fit – I’m not a legitimate size 8 but maybe one day LOL)

The Plain and Simple Everyday pants seemed to be more in line with what I'm shooting for - the width at the hem is only about 2-inches larger than my adjusted Burda pattern. I decided to start with this one. No adjustments. None. Really. No changing my mind partway through the basting. Definitely. Well, I did add 1-inch to the leg length, but that's it.


It's all cut out. Tomorrow I'll baste it all together and see where I stand.

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 :-)

It's official ... and too funny :-)

I went to physio today for a lifelong knee pain which was helped by surgery 16 yrs ago and is giving me grief again.

I got a full evaluation, therapy which consisted of torturing my butt and leg muscles and was sent home with a bunch of exercises to strenghten the weakling muscles. I'm hopeful that they will help.

John now knows I sew. Odd that it would come up in conversation ? Maybe, but during the evaluation the following words were uttered - by him :

swayback, hyper-extended calves and forward tilted pelvis/hip LOL !!!

ya think ?

My self diagnosis, made with helpful advice from all of you and the kind folks over at PR, has been officially and medically confirmed.

Of course I couldn't resist and informed him that I knew most of that (forward tilt suspected but not yet in the list of fitting adjustments) and it made fitting pants a nightmare prompting him to have to wrap his brain around "you SEW your pants !?"

He has no idea the pics I've posted here :-)

All in all - too funny LOL

Now, I just have to get that in-progress pair finished...stay tuned.

Note(s) to self

1) When cutting out a pattern without seam allowances, make sure to add them everywhere they're supposed to be !

Yes, I'm still working on the pants - no, definitely not going to be finished today :-(

2) 2 legs, 4 attempts - RS together-'nuff said

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.

Market Bag

I haven't yet made any progress on my current sewing project, and in case I don't get very far with it today, I finally snapped a pic of my market bag. I found the instructions for this on Liana's blog a long time ago and started it then. The bag was done very quickly up to starting the strap and stopped. Probably got distracted - 'almost finished' items seem to be my nemesis :-)

Anyway, after finishing the last pair of socks, I decided to get moving on clean up and finished this bag as well as using up a 1 lb worsted weight yarn (that was just sitting around and taking up space )for a baby afghan - well, in the interest of full disclosure, the afghan is 'almost done' LOL The yarn ran out and it's a bit smaller than I would like, so I'm going to edge the off-white blanket with a dusty rose color (it will clear out another stash ball of yarn while I'm at it). About 1-2" of sc should do it, I think.

So, here's the bag. I used a crochet cotten and only one ball. I followed the original pattern to the top of the bag and, like Liana, did a 10 st garter stitch strap, although I just did the strap til the cotton ran out and then tacked it to the other side of the bag. One thing I've recently learned is that slipping the first stitch of each row makes a neater edge - tried it on the strap an am pretty happy with it.



...and another pic of my favorite model of late. Given a stick to chew, Alex hides with it til it's gone; Skippy wanders around with it like it's a cigar til he finds just the right spot on the carpet to settle.

Let's pretend

that it's last weekend and I'm posting about the 'baby stuff' on time - LOL Yes, I finally finished the baby gift sewing and on time too. The baby's not due for a couple of weeks yet. I didn't really have a plan in mind of what I wanted to make other than a couple of crib sheets. Apparently, mommy doesn't prefer the pastel babyish items that are readily available. I went to Fabricville, picked up a couple of non-pastel flannel prints and figured I'd make whatever I could get out of what was left over once they were pre-washed (lost lots of length there !) and once the crib sheets were cut out. In total, I made... 3 crib sheets 5 receiving blankets 8 double sided burp cloths Here's the whole pile (less the 3 receiving blankets that were actually finished in time for the shower)

2 receiving blankets - purchased ones are pretty skimpy. I made these as large a square as I could - about 40" x 40". I also used decorative stitches for the first time. Boy, I never filled so many bobbins ! The burp cloths are approx 11" x 18", each of them backed with white and decorative topstitching. And finally, the crib sheets. Those elastics gave me fits but I eventually got 'em on with the regular SM and a zigzag stitch. I didn't have it in me to turn the elastics under and stitch again but I have sheets with the elastic applied like this and they've held up really well. Hopefully these will too.

...still working on my own weekend project - today I fitted, basted, took pics, pin fit some more, basted some more, took more pics and finally decided enough is enough. I started seaming, pressing, serging, etc and made progress but didn't finish. Yet.

I sewed today !

All day. But I'm slow so that means I've only got a project cut and mostly basted. I might have something to post tomorrow. There were 'on the fly' adjustments to the pattern so my next post may be for a wadder/muslin rather than a wearable item. Time will tell.