Persephone, dear, it's been awhile

 Gosh how has it been this long? I last made some Persephone pants in 2019!  

I made three separate versions of these, somehow struggling to commit to an actual heavyweight fabric, and playing around with the rise and the size.  I started with size 4, then I removed the pockets and some of the rise, and then I finally tried out a size 0 (which was a bit of a leap).  The first pair were fun for awhile, the second pair shredded, and the third pair were way too tight.  

So I pulled out these pattern pieces and this heavyweight brick twill (finally!)  All the work has been done fitting and I have made these a few times there are no surprises to the process.  They are a size 4.  There is 1" removed from the rise plus I cut off the top at the size 0 line. I lengthened the darts since previously they were a bit fat after all that cropping.  I cut the waistband much longer than the pattern piece so I wouldn't have to worry about easing it (some flashbacks to terrible Philippa pant experience here, I don't think the Persephones needed to be eased.)  I also narrowed them to size 0 at the hem to see if that would keep my bike from chewing on the cuffs.  I used Pomona patch pockets on them. 

These came together relatively quickly, without any harm to the maker, and with minimal screaming at my sewing machine.  I did the fly buttonholes easily on my normal machine, and after a single attempt at the main button I switched to the Bernina right away because I have learned it is not worth expecting my Pfaff to do a serious buttonhole.  

 

Hooray new pants!  They are too airy for winter and I got cold the first day I wore them. The patch pockets still don't really solve the problem that I can't get things into them.  One solution would be pockets with darts at the bottom and kind of bellows shape so they stick out and are ready for me to put things in, but as I wore these I realised the other solution would be to put the pockets much lower down where there is space for me to get my hands into them - I'm not sure how this would look.  But none of that belies how great they are!  I think they are safe for my bicycle too which is excellent.  Overall it took me years, but I finally have a perfect pair of Persephones in my closet.