Named Alpi Chinos - pattern experiments.

Digging through my big dropbox of patterns, I found this. I recalled that back in 2015 I was really keen to make these trousers! So excited! And somehow, time ran out and they didn't get made.  So I became again very curious how the Alpi chinos are doing and wanted to see for myself. 

I have this very pretty light corduroy fabric from The Fabric Store.  A bit wild.  Hm, if I got more, I would make a wee jacket, in fact...but I decided it would be good for these pants.  I made size 38 according to the size chart.  Seems like when you buy a Named pattern, you only get a few sizes?  Or did I print layers?  It doesn't matter - seems that this pattern has gone off their website, so it's no longer available.  I did impeccable pattern matching on both the front pockets and the back.  And I do love the tui and kowhai inside the pockets -it's really my favourite of the New Zealand quilting cottons.  Overall the parts of this project please me so much.

Simple pants, I don't recall my opinions on doing the fly - since everyone seems to reinvent how to do a fly zip, but I got them done and put them on and realised...2015 was a long time ago.  And that low waisted trouser style from 2015 was hard to fit then and it is both hard to fit and kind of unstylish now.  By which I mean the upper hips were way too big.  So I added in some big back darts and took in the back waist before adding the waistband, and I got them to the point where they wouldn't fall off.  It made me lose my interest in these a bit.  I already have the Cali Faye Hampshire pants - I don't believe Cali Faye exists anymore, but the trousers are a great fit on me if I want that kind of style.  Basically, I don't need any Alpi Chinos in my life.  And higher waisted things look way better on me. 

 

 

 

Went to a friend who has gotten a bit hippier than I am. Yay friends!  Thank you so much for loving what I make!

Anna Allen Philippa pants in corduroy

These have been on my radar for ages and I finally had a vision that was this very outfit:

I was thinking of it as my old man winter outfit but I think I misjudged and it's way too stylish for that title. 

The corduroy is from Miss Maude (here), I am not sure why I thought this fabric wouldn't be good for these pants months ago, when I had it in the beautiful caramel colour and made a jacket for a friend instead...so I had to get more. 

I used my intel from the Persephone pants and cut a size 4. I inspected the rise and with some horror that it's even higher than the Persephones, I took an inch out all the way around, a few inches from the top.  Doing that made the Persephone pants fit me perfectly.  I didn't change the crotch curve at all.  And similarly - the fit through the crotch is great here.

I didn't do any special ironing for corduroy.  Sometimes I ironed it on a double layer but more often I just flattened down the fur. 

I had a vague idea involving front patch pockets but I just stuck them on the back like the pattern said.  Maybe in a future version I'll go crazy. (Also I think make the back pockets smaller.)  I did, however, do the zip fly.  And I have high expectations because the button fly is *so good* for the Persephones - I didn't really like the fly instructions. They made me grumpy.  The results are fine.  I had to use pliers to remove a lot of zipper teeth and so I have tiny zipper teeth all over the place now. 

The other thing that made me grumpy was interfacing the waistband.  It ends up that you need a HUGE amount of easing that waistband in.  I know sometimes she instructs you to only interface up to the SA and that might have helped - I ended up cutting my interfacing and there were huge gaps in it from areas that had to stretch to ease in.  My back waistband thus has a bit of a gathered look up super close from the dramas that ensued to get it in place.  There was drama.  I had tried on the pants at that point and the drama was only worth it because I realised they were a perfect fit. 

Perfect fit!  They don't look very flattering in the pictures but the amount of ease through the thighs makes them really comfortable. 

My sweater is the Shifty Sweater by Andrea Mowry, made in Spincycle Yarns.  It took me about 4 months to make and is the first sweater I'm proud of like it's my first child.  More info on ravelry, where I am soelimano.

Ginger jeans - midrise - review

How many years have I been planning to make these jeans?
Rhetorical question.
We finally got here. I had the pattern for ages but didn't want to cut it up while I was uncertain about the fit and the high waist, so when the mid-waist version came out I bought the PDF.  I made this mid-waist version, which on me is high waisted.

I debated sizes for a long while.
6 on the chart, 4 if you only go by the waist.
Recommendation is to size down.

I had a play with my corduroy.  It's very stretchy.  So I made the size 2.  I'm not even sure how this made logical sense.  The waist size of the 2 is 25, which is about an inch smaller than my waist, but the hips are 34 and mine are 37.  Spoiler: it worked.  I did a cheater wide calf by just widening the calf pattern on the back piece as I cut, ending up at the hem with the normal width.  I didn't do a knock knee/valgus knee adjustment, which I think I could do in jeans and never bother with.

Corduroy was splendid.  I didn't have to do any visible topstitching and that was my goal.  Before COVID I could have snuck these in as work pants (I'm an ER doctor) but now we have to launder our scrubs at work.  Darn! 

I was irritated by the instructions.  There is one error in the pattern, and I know it's been mentioned - it shows the wrong side up of one of the fly pieces I think.  My irritation is that the words in the instructions were not chosen well and were unclear.  In order to understand this fly method I HAD to use the sewalong.  When you use it, you have all the info and it's clearer.  I thought that a print pattern should have everything you need in the pattern, it shouldn't be a requirement to use a sewalong to get a basic understanding of what the pattern wants you to do. 

I really didn't like these fly instructions.  However, I think in the end the fly looks great on the outside.  I don't love the inside quite as much.  I need to do this type of fly more and see if I start to like it as I get used to it. 

Unlike most people I absolutely *hate* the pocket stay.  I didn't expect that.  My corduroy is possibly more stretchy than jeans fabric and the pocket stay is quilting cotton, so the front of my pants have wrinkles horizontally due to how the fabric wants to stretch and can't. I think the pocket stay totally takes away from the comfort and fit of stretchy pants.  To each their own!  I know lladybird switched hers to normal pockets so I'm hoping I'll be able to figure out how to do that easily enough.  I definitely will switch on my next version.  Those pocket stays made it hard to sew the front, because of how the very stretchy outer wanted to stretch, and the inner couldn't.  So I had to be really cautious as I sewed that I didn't end up with wrinkles. 

I didn't have enough corduroy to use it as the waistband lining and my inner waistband is really really stretchy.  Like, I should have used heavier interfacing.  I don't even remember if I interfaced it.  I should have.  The waistband feels loose and a little floppy to me instead of feeling stable.  Ironically it's a tiny bit too big!  I didn't take it in at all, it's not too bad.

In the end, after some usual buttonhole catastrophe torture, I have a pair of pants that fit amazingly well and I love them.  I think there's a weird extra-fabric thing going on in the front and I'm hopeful it's due to that pocket stay imbalance.  My next pair will be jean fabric and I suspect they will be tighter, so it'll be interesting to compare. 

I thus agree with everyone: Ginger jeans are great. Use the sewalong. And size down. If you are using really stretchy fabric size down even more. 

Stacker jacket by Papercut patterns

Well this has a dumb name and I keep wanting to call it the slacker jacket...that didn't stop me from wanting to make it.

I liked the simplicity. Didn't realise it was lined - I would have happily gone with it unlined but following the directions was easier so I found a nice lining for it which had been in my stash for ages. It's a quilting cotton from Hawaii. I used silk to line the sleeves.

This came together really easily. I knew from the start that I was making it for a friend.  I stopped before putting in the buttonholes because my sewing machine hates buttonholes.  It took me until lockdown to get on with it (also because I had no rush while I couldn't mail things...)

Fabric: beautiful corduroy from Miss Maude. I was a tiny bit sad to give this away, this fabric, I just can't think of what else I want made out of it.

I made this in size 3. That matched the size chart and the fit is exactly right.

I think I might have gone with too big buttons but I pulled them from my button stash and they were the perfect match.  When I finally did the buttonholes things went surprisingly well - two buttonholes were great, one was slightly messed up and the top one, where there's a nearby seam, was a hellish catastrophe.  About as expected.  I have become pretty skilled at using a bar tack to supplement all the bad buttonholes I've made lately. They look terrible but luckily are usually hidden by buttons (you know, as buttonholes are.)

I noticed that there's only like a cm between the buttonhole and the edge of the fabric, so hopefully they will hold up ok.

I keep being surprised by how beautiful this jacket is!

Few thoughts:

The sleeves are slightly dropped which makes them seem droopy to me, but definitely makes them easy to fit, because you don't need to worry much about the armscye fit like it a more closely fitting jacket.
Also, the pockets are similar to other things I've seen lately, for some reason tall skinny pockets are in vogue - they are good for storing objects, but they are bad for hands.  Just so you know.