My first trouser attempt! I wasn't initially planning this so soon. In fact, last week I was lurking Tasia's delightful sewalong for the Lonsdale dress and that was the plan for this week. The sewalong gave me so many great ideas, things like using seam binding...so I went to the local shop and they didn't have any : ( Not to mention underlining, it was a breakthrough! I want to do this to everything...I could hand sew all those floppy facings down to something!
I thought about that afterwards and realised I have finally gone up a level. I noticed it with the Lisette jacket (it's almost done!) - it finally doesn't seem like too much effort to bind my seams and do extra little touches that make the final product genuinely awesome. I'm even considering hand stitching things -- I have never slip stitched anything in my life; all my hand sewing was made up as I went along and usually to fill in a hole or fix an open seam. As a result it usually looked pretty bad close up. It's been illuminating to realise what a big place hand stitching has in sewing. The Colette Sewing Handbook had a great chapter on how to properly hand sew. (Unfortunately my CSH came without its patterns and I am still pining for them but Amazon wouldn't ship them to New Zealand.)
So I went to Wellington and got this crazy silver spangled wool. And I thought it would be perfect for the Vogue trouser pattern. I was so right. And I have apparently figured out Vogue's sizing (choose one size smaller than you actually are) because I picked a size 10 and they fit perfectly (even maybe a touch loose at the hips). As always, halfway through the project I thought they were too small. These were a super easy project to do and overall just took a few hours...until I got to the facings. It's a bit bewildering to do pants - I am not used to which piece connects to what, whereas with dresses it usually seems instinctive, and the zip was to go in the back and I followed the pattern then realised I do have free will and I would have preferred it on the side. The lining is black silk that I got as a remnant. Naturally it's just a facing (oh I sooo hate facings!) but a nice one and it will definitely help the pants hold their shape.
I was so pleased with how the zip went in - the instructions were to baste the back shut, apply the zip, and then open the seam, and I did that. I shortened it at the bottom and then, feeling oh-so-clever, I shortened it at the top so I could fold my facing over the edge. Um, oops. People, there is a reason that zips have a little plastic stopper at the top....yes, I zipped my zipper right off and that was the end of "just a few hours." And the end of my awesome teal blue zipper. The other one I had in the right size was sky blue, still a little bit interesting but not exciting.
Three hours more work to get the zipper in, again. In the thick herringbone wool my stitches nearly vanish, and the trousers have three darts on each side. (One front and two back.) So I sewed the facings down by just sewing vertically up every seam (sides and front), and sewing along the darts. The stitches are invisible, and my evil facing is held down! Awesome! I'm actually really excited how these pants turned out, and I definitely put in some extra effort finishing edges and facings. I did a simple hem and most of the finishing was done with my shears.
Sorry for all the shots of my bum...
Sparkly wool! Again, sorry for close up butt action but that way you can see the zipper too. I will be doing side zips from now on.
I thought about that afterwards and realised I have finally gone up a level. I noticed it with the Lisette jacket (it's almost done!) - it finally doesn't seem like too much effort to bind my seams and do extra little touches that make the final product genuinely awesome. I'm even considering hand stitching things -- I have never slip stitched anything in my life; all my hand sewing was made up as I went along and usually to fill in a hole or fix an open seam. As a result it usually looked pretty bad close up. It's been illuminating to realise what a big place hand stitching has in sewing. The Colette Sewing Handbook had a great chapter on how to properly hand sew. (Unfortunately my CSH came without its patterns and I am still pining for them but Amazon wouldn't ship them to New Zealand.)
So I went to Wellington and got this crazy silver spangled wool. And I thought it would be perfect for the Vogue trouser pattern. I was so right. And I have apparently figured out Vogue's sizing (choose one size smaller than you actually are) because I picked a size 10 and they fit perfectly (even maybe a touch loose at the hips). As always, halfway through the project I thought they were too small. These were a super easy project to do and overall just took a few hours...until I got to the facings. It's a bit bewildering to do pants - I am not used to which piece connects to what, whereas with dresses it usually seems instinctive, and the zip was to go in the back and I followed the pattern then realised I do have free will and I would have preferred it on the side. The lining is black silk that I got as a remnant. Naturally it's just a facing (oh I sooo hate facings!) but a nice one and it will definitely help the pants hold their shape.
I was so pleased with how the zip went in - the instructions were to baste the back shut, apply the zip, and then open the seam, and I did that. I shortened it at the bottom and then, feeling oh-so-clever, I shortened it at the top so I could fold my facing over the edge. Um, oops. People, there is a reason that zips have a little plastic stopper at the top....yes, I zipped my zipper right off and that was the end of "just a few hours." And the end of my awesome teal blue zipper. The other one I had in the right size was sky blue, still a little bit interesting but not exciting.
Three hours more work to get the zipper in, again. In the thick herringbone wool my stitches nearly vanish, and the trousers have three darts on each side. (One front and two back.) So I sewed the facings down by just sewing vertically up every seam (sides and front), and sewing along the darts. The stitches are invisible, and my evil facing is held down! Awesome! I'm actually really excited how these pants turned out, and I definitely put in some extra effort finishing edges and facings. I did a simple hem and most of the finishing was done with my shears.
Sorry for all the shots of my bum...
No comments:
Post a Comment