The last Clyde pants!

 I know I keep saying I won't ever make any more Clyde pants.  Maybe I'm finally done with them?

After my experience with Pietra, I wanted to try some crotch adjustments on pants I've made a few times.  The crotch on these is not satisfactory and the rise is too high so I thought they would be good to work on. 

I shortened the rise by 1" on the front and back, but in order to not mess with the pockets, I shortened the side piece below the pockets.  

I added the Persephone butt and front crotch.  Instead of pinching out fabric, this required adding fabric, and it did feel weird to add when I thought the problem is too much...

The fabric is beautiful textured green suiting from The Fabric Store, it's part of their new stock in now.  Run and get some! It's scrumptious.  

I put these together despite a terrible viral gunge, worse than covid forreal people. 

 

The top with them is a Deer and Doe Givre, I am not planning to blog it elsewhere.  No excitement just a nice tank top.  I might make the pieced dress version soon. 

I definitely see the butt has more definition.  The front crotch really does seem to be better. Ironically, the back rise isn't enough, and I've remembered to make my elastic much looser so the butt feels a bit at risk at present, but the elastic will tighten after I've washed them, and while wearing they are pretty comfortable.  They feel much smaller than my previous ones, probably because there's an inch less fabric hanging in my crotch.  They also seem very short which is, I suppose, because the crotch isn't hanging down and making them longer. 

I guess to sum, I would optimally take that inch out of the front but taper it back in to the back so I have a higher back rise.  I do think the crotch is better.  Can I be done making Clyde pants?  I have given all my previous ones away; I don't have a huge backstash of them.  These seem like they will be nice spring pants so hopefully I'll keep them around, and hopefully I will move on and stop trying to perfect these impossible pants!  It might be worth going back to the Arenite pants, which I mucked around with a bit and then gave up on.  

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. 

Persephone by Anna Allen, version no. 3

My beautiful green Persephone pants shredded in the wash. It turns out that the velvet wasn't so strong and the stitching at the waist couldn't hold it together.  It wasn't going to be easy to repair so in the meantime I have them in a corner awaiting some upcycling-brainstorm.  (A delicate jacket, methinks.)  So I had to make more.

Also because yet again I just don't seem to understand the concept of heavyweight duck fabric, I made some Persephone pants out of a wool woven.  It is somewhat heavier than all my previous Persephones, so I'm getting there!  Also this time I made the big leap and sized down from a 4 to a 0.  Spoiler: I think a 2 would have been a better choice.  Live and learn.

I'm pretty good at making these by now.  I made them on a Sewing Day with my friend Tessa when I was over in Hamilton visiting the nice places I used to live.  I used my size 4 pattern to adjust the crotch height, the total decrease was about 1", above the level of the hips.  I could use even more of a decrease.  In fact, when I make these again at some far away point in the future, I should do the size 2 and I should remove another cm off the top of the pants. Then the waist would be a bit bigger, and that would be nice.  I'm 5'4" and seem to be about 27" waist and 37" hips.  I'm somehow very short everywhere.  My torso is short and my pelvis is short.  I'm beginning to think I need to shorten all pants patterns below the waist, the way I'd usually shorten a tshirt above the waist. 

As it is, the effect is sort of that I have been poured into these.

Sadly even though I'm reunited with my beloved Pfaff, I am not doing good buttonholes.  I had a lot of trouble on the main buttonhole, though the small ones went ok, and I think from now on I'm going to just do them manually.  That is in the instructions in the Dawn Jeans (which I'm currently making) and it would save me a lot of drama. 

There is a huge tummy tuck happening in the front, it's like all my guts are sucked in by the tight pants, but it is rather too much.  I am giving these to a friend because they are too tight for comfort!

Anna Allen Persephone Pants in Hermes Velvet

So apparently I don't learn from my errors.  Or possibly I just think that following pattern instructions and fabric weight recommendations...is optional.  Because version 1 of these amazing pants was made from a lightweight linen-silk blend that suffered from just not being heavyweight enough.

Thus for take 2, I naturally pulled this fantastic Hermes cotton velvet out of my stash. It's a one meter long and rather wide piece that I bought in Copenhagen and it is just so beautiful that I want to make everything out of it.  Naturally again...it's not heavyweight.  It um has great drape.

For this version I made size 4 again.  I removed the pockets.  They sit right on my hip bones and I can't get anything into them easily.  When something is in them, it hurts my hipbones.  So - no pockets.

Then by comparing closely to the first version, I removed 1 inch from the upper part of the waist.  I did this because I saw that the entire butt and crotch area fit me well, but I had excess fabric bunching at the waistband - the upper part of the rise was too long.  So I couldn't use the lengthen/shorten lines, since they are in the crotch and I didn't want to change that part of the fit.

I made parallel lines up high and used those.  I would lengthen the dart just a little next time as my modification led to a really short, fat dart.  I had to shorten all elements of the fly as well, and then make my own button placement.

I sewed these in one day.  It was amazing.  Except for the buttonholes.  I had small vintage buttons from etsy and no hammer, so I didn't test the buttons ahead of time.  And it ends up the crappy Singer I'm borrowing WILL make buttonholes but it does not align them correctly.  I had to do about 25 practice buttons before I could correct for the weird alignment.  That was when I realised that these buttons are some kind of vintage that look like they have to be soldered together. Etsy fail.  And since I had made 4 13mm buttonholes I was stuck with an irregular size.  I ordered So Many online buttons and nothing fit.  After a MONTH, I finally gave up and bought normal buttons at JoAnns.

And then once I finished the pants...the buttonholer Would Not make the buttonhole for the main button because of the many layers of fabric now present.  It's really frustrating to finish a pair of pants and feel like you are Just About to wear them but are stymied by a few small steps.  I seriously considered hand sewing the main buttonhole, but then I read a bunch of posts on how to hand sew buttonholes and decided I couldn't learn that before my frustration overflowed. So in preparation for a 3-day Thanksgiving sewing binge, I took these plus some big puppy eyes to someone I knew, who after much begging, grumpily sewed me one buttonhole on a Bernina.  I was never that excited by Berninas before but now I wish I had one.  It used a buttonhole foot rather than the long buttonhole thing, and because of this you have great control over the entire hole.

And my Persephone pants are done! And they are amazing!  And it looks like I need to size down for my next pair!  Which I will make in the correct weight of fabric, I promise!