Waffle patterns! A company that makes gorgeous patterns, with unusual details, and fantastic instructions. Every time I've made something from Waffle, it's been epic. So why have I not made them all? I suppose they do seem complicated, and that can sometimes be daunting. These pants definitely seemed daunting! So many pockets! The fly! And then I realised I could use these two separate 1m pieces of fabric and I became totally keen to overcome all and make them right now. I allocated a weekend.
Chose size 38 because in non stretch fabrics I didn't want them too tight, I could maybe have done a 36 if I were using a lighter weight or a stretchy fabric.
The blue is a "duck egg" canvas from Miss Maude and the brown is Japanese denim, also from Miss Maude. The denim, in my defense, was for shorts. But I have no excuse for why I bought a single meter of the canvas, as I was probably hoping to make Persephone pants with it and they need 2 m. I really liked the colours together but I also wanted to be careful not to turn these into clown pants. I thought long and hard about how many pockets to use, and how to use the pockets to blend the colours. The side tool pockets were tempting - and I definitely had enough fabric, but I was also a bit impatient and didn't want to faff around with too many little details, so I didn't do them. The front leg pocket is supposed to have a flap, but I thought that was dumb. Instead, I lengthened the pocket about 2" towards the inner leg, and added a zip to it with the sort of zip welting technique. There was a bit of mucking around to get it to work (Note: always make the zipper-hole smaller than you think you need!) but it's fully functional.
It was a full 2 days of work, with the cutting being a previous day, so 3 including pattern piece management. Incidentally, I finally figured out a dilemma that had plagued me this week: why my patterns were wonky. The print shop had printed single pages wrong. I figured it out because the pocket page was wrong and I had it to compare to the other pages. I've since dropped by the print shop who are so understanding and we are going to come up with solutions to make it not happen again - but on my side it was a serious fail of taking responsibility and measuring the square box *every time!!*
I was sick on the weekend I made these but I managed to slowly make my way through, aided by how awesome Yuki's patterns are. Everything is clear. The fly instructions were, somehow, as always, different from -all the other fly instructions ever- (why are there infinite ways of making a fly?) but they produced a perfect result. I didn't switch to my new-old Bernina until after the sewing machine had birdnested up the waistband, but anyway the Bernina gave me easy hems and a buttonhole, which my sickly Pfaff can't manage.
And to my shock they fit! Pretty well!
I took these with me on a trip away and convinced a friend who is good at photography to do a bit of a photo shoot around his house. He has lots of jungly nooks and was entertained enough to get creative.
After wearing these pants around for a day, although the waist is a tad too high, they scrunched down nicely and the fabric has started to stretch a bit. I don't think I can call these high sophistication, but they are down my usual alley as sort of intrepid urban and the color scheme matches most of what I own (except for the pinks.) This has also led me to look harder at Waffle patterns and I think I might attempt another pair of her pants now that these were such a good success.
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