Made more Arthur pants, still working towards perfection

 So I lied about not making more Arthur pants.  Right after my first pair I got the pattern pieces out and changed where I had shortened things.  

I shortened the rise by 2" and shortened the legs by 1". I didn't change size. 

I made a pair in knit fabric.  I really can't tell the difference because it's a heavy velvet knit and there's so much fabric everywhere that they feel just as big as the first time around.  Oh well.  Better make more.  

So for the third time I also trimmed an edge of the curve, I left the pockets alone, and trimmed a max of 1 cm off the side pieces below that.  I made this pair in some luscious linen from a sample sale.  It's so beautiful.  I love it so much.  I love these so much.  I wore them on my trip to Europe where it was hot and I think the crotch is just a tiny bit droopy but otherwise they are winners and in a fabric store in Bern I even impressed the shop ladies who were inspired to take down the pattern name and research further.  BUT I think I can still take out a lot of volume from the side leg.  

 

So I did that, this time I went ahead and cut the curve down including the pocket.  I reshaped the pocket opening to be the same, but the result is that I loose some of the front waistband - maybe about 2 cm.  I had another length of linen from the sample sale and I thought I should do my experiments with fabric that shows the shape, so here we are.  

 

I think I am finally really happy with this shape.  It's still got a curve but it's not exaggerated.  The slightly smaller waist makes just a bit less volume on the front.  Maybe the back has too much volume but I can't see it so I don't care.  I wanted to immediately make a lovely loungey pair but they are still pretty big consumers of fabric, so I didn't have enough grey knit after cutting out a new singlet.  I am visiting the States...maybe I need some special trip fabric?  

Also my tops in grey and pale green are both cropped Blomma tanks.  They are my new favourite things ever for winter, because I can wear them with all my new high waisted pants and my cropped sweaters that I have been making.   

 

 

Kila love

You guys I'm just kind of drowning in amazing clothes lately.  I don't know if I hit my groove, if I usually make things for other people, or what.  Or maybe it's simple: the KILA TOP happened.  

First version is in heavy rib knit.  The kind of knit I struggle to use for anything.  The original sweatshirting is long gone, it's too heavy to really make anything with, but I have a lot.  So I made a tester version of this top.  Size 4, no changes to the pattern.  

The finish for the bindings is similar to the Mission Maxi top, I quite like this way of doing things.  The big difference is that now I'm trying to coverstitch to finish the bindings and I don't quite know where to put the coverstitch seams.  I have so many options - I can do 3 or 2 stitch, I can centre it on the rib, over the ditch, or below the rib.  What is the right way to do things?  

On v 1, I did two rows of stitching next to each other on the body.  It's not visible on the rib, and sort of seems like it should be on the rib rather than the body.  Also, this does not actually keep things straight, the fabric is not quite so friendly and so you can see all the places where it slipped around.  As expected, there is a bit too much length in the straps, but the armscye is good and the length isn't too long.  This is going off to a friend of course. 

 

Moved on to v2.  I removed about 1 cm from the front straps on the pattern pieces, which is a usual fix for me.  I didn't adjust the pattern in any other ways.  

This is a very stretchy pink knit with some flecks of brown in it.  I don't recall what blend it is, but probably viscose or rayon.  It is transparent.  I wanted to use it for knit Arthur pants, but I didn't have enough.  So I made this top two layers, and just treated them as 1 throughout.  This time for the bindings I switched to centring 3 lines of stitching with the middle line in the ditch to keep things straight.  This does not actually keep things straight, the fabric is not quite so friendly and so you can see all the places where it slipped around.  It looks a bit messy, also because the top stitching is brown and it is visible.  This shirt is very snug, the fabric obviously has less give being two layers and not ribbed, but none of that is bad.  I don't know if I'll end up giving it away but I am happy with it.  

 

Finally I was inspired to make v3.  This fabric is a beautiful light rib, with irregular ribbing, and of course the pattern is spectacular.  It's very stretchy but retains it's shape nicely.  This time around I did the two outer coverstitch rows but not the middle one (this is my preferred coverstitch), and did 1 on the rib band, and 1 over the edge on the body to catch the underside of the binding.  It looks terrible.  As before no matter how much control you think you have, when the coverstitch machine sandwiches things together it pulls them to one side so a straight line is not always easy to achieve.  Despite this I put this shirt on immediately and haven't taken it off since, so it took awhile to actually get photos because I was busy having fun in my amazing top. 

 

No I'm lying, I eventually took it off to wash, but I basically sewed 6 items prior to my Europe trip and wore them all the time on the trip, they were so fantastic.  I'm just feeling overwhelmed by having so many cool new options!  

The Base trousers by Ann Ringstrand, attempts 1 & 2

I have been really excited to make a few patterns from this book called SEW, by Ann Ringstrand.  It ends up that a pair of my favourite pants ever are her original Hope pants.  Seemed super thrilling to be able to make other designs of hers. 

The two included pants patterns were the priority.  I was going to make the work trousers first and had everything ready to trace the pattern (huge first step!!)  I got one page traced...and realised I had traced the base trousers, because half the pattern is on each pattern sheet (rather than both sides of the pattern sheet corresponding to the SAME pattern.)  But it didn't really matter, I made the Base trousers first.  They are a bit harder so it's probably good that way. 

Size S, by my measurements (waist 27 hip 37)

I did not modify these at all to start out with - this was an experiment, and I knew I would send the first pair to a friend if they didn't fit well as she has gained some weight.  I also worried a tiny bit I was making them even bigger than necessary because my seam allowances were done by eyeball and might not have been precise.  Honestly tracing my own patterns is like a game of telephone, it's a surprise I end up with something remotely similar to the original. 

The fabric is Japanese suiting from The Fabric Store, it's so sumptuous!  I really enjoyed the feel of this fabric.  It behaved well when sewing though my iron occasionally leaves marks because it is a shitty iron and gets too hot at times.  

I did a lot of mental cheerleading to get through these pants.  Like, day one was prep, next day was back pocket welts, next day was fly...it was very good to break it down like that.  The instructions are so super vague, which made it exciting to hunt for instructions that would really help me, and by making my own welts I had to reason through how to make a welt, which has presumably made me a better welter overall in life.  (in theory, as proven later.)

 

I think these pants fit quite a bit like the model pictures, honestly.  I wouldn't want them so loose, but they are wearable.  So I'm moving on to the XS, and I will shorten the rise 1 cm and shorten the height 1".  I'm going to make fake welt pockets for the back instead of real ones, since I never use them.  Whew, back to the tracing and seam allowancing.  

So that was done, and I cut out my beautiful, soft purple fabric and then procrastinated with a binge of knits.  Finally came back around to these, the stress of not doing them got to be more than the pain of doing them.  The problem is that I really wanted them to be nice, and I really just wanted to get on with it.  I didn't have the same amount of patience to really reason through every single step.  The result is that my welt pockets are not as nice.  My fly still has a funny gap at the bottom of the zip where the front stitching ends.  (I think you just HAVE to baste the fly together to get rid of that, I'm so sick of it.)  

I also realised something I have Never Realised Before, which is that in slash pocket pants, the pockets constitute a relevant part of the front waist.  Oooohhhh.  The pocket pieces here are a single piece, and because I made my pockets bigger, and the game of seam allowances etc, it wasn't really clear where to fold them in half.  I had to measure the distance from the side seam that made sense, and then match both pockets up to the front at that distance.  Noticing as I did it that the other pair of pants are HUGELY different at that spot. It's amazing how much you can sew, and then realise you still just didn't know something.  I did eventually recover from my disappointment that these are not perfect, and accepted that they are wearable and lovely, but I do still feel like they are kind of too big. Plus I really hate the mess of the fake welts on the inside. But it's a style, it's ok.  

 

However regarding this style, in particular, I think it's not very interesting.  I could have made a pair of Cali Faye Hampshire pants which HAVE INSTRUCTIONS and welt pockets and slash pockets etc and I would have had a better quality final pair of pants.  In fact I am going to make those, because it's been years, and I think it might be good for me to review the instructions.  If Ann Ringstrand wanted us to make pants to the same standard she does, she could have provided instructions online as an addendum to her book.  She doesn't - I suppose you need to look up the couture techniques elsewhere if you want to apply them.  Anyway, if you really want to make her patterns, you can, but I think books like this are more about inspiration and not about actually making the patterns.  

Despite all that, I think the other pattern in this book is a very different shape and I'm still willing to do it once I have a fly plan.  All the other pockets can be stuck on so I won't have as many dramas, aside from the tracing etc itself.  I will most likely go with the XS despite the size chart.