Tuesday 1 October 2013

aimecommemarie - Marche a suivre pants

I'm on a roll, even though it's a tracing-pattern roll, and I hate that nearly as much as I hate facings.
Which reminds me that since I didn't trace *one piece* of my Anna, I might have to buy another copy.  Also annoying.

So, I'm on an aimecommemarie roll!  And now that it's finally getting warmer, I totally needed some bee-print lounge pants.  Even though it meant I had to learn how to buttonhole.  And then I didn't need the buttonholes.  But it was fun to make them and now I'm less scared of the Papercut Sylphide that I have lounging on my list. 

This pattern was straightforward until it got to the waistband.  I cut a size M based on the measurements, and the only additional thing I did was sew the pockets down.  They were going to flop all over the place otherwise.  But when I got to the waistband piece, it's about half as wide as necessary.  (I also didn't read to cut it on the fold so I had two, but that didn't cause any problems.)  You are advised to have a 1 cm piece of elastic but after folding the waistband in half and sewing it down, the waist is only 1 cm wide.  In theory there should be a strip of elastic in there along with a grosgrain ribbon.  Another comment is that the ribbon length that aimecommemarie suggests is not at alllll long enough, I couldn't have tied it in a bow once it was installed.  I tried just having the drawstring but I couldn't get the pants over my hips, so I went with just the elastic (which I had to shorten an additional 8 cm, and I used a 1/4" elastic instead of 1 cm).  No need for my pretty buttonholes!





Sorry my pictures kind of suck.  Getting used to the self timer is a bitch.  And there is no good place near the house to set the camera...

Anyway these are to be summer lounge pants and they will do for that.  They are not really flattering on me.  But if I made this pattern again I would definitely double the width of the waistband so it comes up higher and fits a bigger piece of elastic and the ribbon.  With some kind of rayon these might turn out quite exotic, actually.

I love the way aimecommemarie presents her patterns - they are on a sheet of solid paper, and look hand drawn.  (Although pieces overlap and you have to trace them.)  The instructions have great diagrams.  Sometimes, however, they are short on little details that beginning sewists need.  And of course it would be nice if they were available in English instead of just French.  I wrote a list of keywords and didn't have any trouble with the French, but if the patterns were more complex it would be a pain. 

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