Pattern Emporium Pleats to meet you pants

 My friend Tessa recommended these to me as I wanted to try out some new lounge pants. It took me ages to find the right fabric as in my mind it needed to be very drapey, and the pleats/darts mean it does take up more than a scant meter of yardage.  

Finally found a winner - viscose from The Fabric Box in Auckland.  It's a metre of fabric but just barely wide enough.  Well.  I shortened the legs 1" at the thigh lines in order to have enough space to cut out the waistband.  I figured I'm short, I might as well shorten them.  I've never shortened at the thigh lines before, that I can think of, but knees are always in the wrong place on RTW so it seemed sensible enough.  

Tessa assured me to choose my size by the measurements, so I cut a size 10.  There is a lot of info about final measurements which I did not really pay attention to so it's hard for me to tell whether I could have been forewarned about just how much ease is present.

 

Thank god I did shorten them!  They are a fine length now, though I could shorten a bit more if I wanted.  They are very drapey and, well...VERY drapey.  My first instinct with this pattern was to use a drapey woven and I still think that might be better.  I don't think the fabric has to stretch anywhere at all.  It feels a bit precariously loose on as I don't like droopy crotches in pants I'm going to wear out, but I see it looks pretty great in the pictures.

I was very grumpy while I was making these, which means I had little patience for annoying quirks.  The most annoying of those quirks was: not sewing down the pleats at all, you just sew across the top.  Really everyone: sew down your pleats 2-3 cm.  It will make your life easier and the pleats will look neater.  

The other most annoying feature of this pattern was the layout of the instructions.  Luckily other than a quick glance to check the direction of pleat folding, there's not much instruction needed.  Which is good because the instructions are *IMPOSSIBLE* to read.  They are laid out 2 pages across on a pdf, so you have to enlarge to 200%, scan across, at which point the page gets lost.  I really cannot state how important it is for instructions to be written on single pages in a vertical, not landscape orientation.  Maybe other people use tablets or something to read their instructions??  I would hesitate to buy a pattern from this company that required closely following instructions because my memory of being annoyed is pretty strong.  

Despite that, and despite the careful work needed to maintain 1/4" SA (which I kind of disagree with because I think it takes away an element of safety that a SA of 3/8" provides) - these are lovely pants which exactly match the pictures.  The pockets are just barely deep enough, the pleats create nice shape, the back darts are fantastic.  It took maybe 2 hours to make these.  I'm glad I waited for just the right fabric.