I really didn't need more lounge pants, but I was so taken in by the slender fit of these and the cool lower leg gathers that I bought the pattern without much debate.
I went with size small.
The debate came about when it was time to choose fabric. How heavy? The instructions don't really give you much help. I perused the tester photos for help. I suspected in a sweatshirt fabric the gathers might be too thick, but I didn't really want my pants to be tshirt weight. I had a perfect drapey midweight cupro knit, but for some reason it felt too special to use on this, since I don't know much about this pattern company. Also, the gathered legs take a lot of fabric! This is not your 1-meter loungewear special. I finally compromised on a midweight jersey without much stretch - it was a remnant at Nick's Fabrics in Auckland and was 1.6m.
The instructions are a bit sparse and can be confusing as the different views are intermixed - but really you don't need too many instructions for these pants. The pattern pieces come together fine. I found it irritating that there's no top ribbing pocket piece - you have to make it yourself. This is the kind of small thing that bothers me. I noticed that it was hard to tell where to stop gathering on the lower leg. I lined up my pieces and marked the spot, and I've adjusted my pattern pieces now so that I make a notch at that spot. It would speed up the process a lot to do that in the beginning.
In the end I like the pants. I made my waistband too tight. The cuffs are a bit tight. This is due to my fabric not really stretching enough. The fit was great but loungewear is not really very flattering so here are my scruffy hallway-loitering photographs:
The feature of the gathered lower legs does mean the grain goes a bit strange, but really I noticed that when pulling these on, and never again. I think in stretchy fabric you can size down for a more legging-like look and that weird pull would be even less of an issue.
I think these pants deserve a second go in something cuddly and very stretchy. I have lightweight sweatshirting with a bit of cashmere in it so I'm debating using that. I'm happy with the size chart, and pretty happy with this pattern. It has a lot of options - include a version sans gathers, and a version that rips all the way up the side like those Adidas trackies from the 90s. (I wanted those so bad. In the 90s.) However the set up reminds me of Patterns for Pirates and the cousin company Made for Mermaids - in that I would be hesitant to make anything complicated from them. Simple things like this, fine, because you can really do anything with knits. However now I'm contradicting myself because I'm in love with the Elliot romper pattern, so watch this space...
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