Vogue 8755 Pants

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.

Jalie thermal underwear (and a shopping spree in Wellington!)

Took a little break from dresses in favor of a bit of practicality.  I was hunting for awhile for a men's thermal underwear pattern.  I had gotten some nice black local merino wool and my boyfriend was keen for a pain of longjohns.  Via various forums I found the out-of-print Jalie thermal underwear pattern, available for download on their website for $9USD.

I am so far not in love with pdf patterns.  The Jalie pattern was particularly confusing because it has an unreliable amount of overlap and doesn't outline each piece clearly so you know where to cut.  Luckily my boyfriend was willing to help since he got something out of it : )  He did the cutting and we taped together.  He's a skinny 31 waist and he chose a size U (the pattern covers toddler to big adult), which in retrospect was a touch big, but he says he likes it that way (I also cut off about an inch of the waist to make it sit slightly lower toward his hips.)

It was my first time working with knits!  Jalie recommends first zig zagging the seam, then following it with a straight stitch.  I did that in some places, although it seemed better to do the straight stitch first which held the fabric and then I did a zig zag to better hold the edge.  The instructions were a bit funny for the fly and I had to undo some mistakes there when I sewed the front and the back together, but it was otherwise straightforward construction and my first ever elastic application went well.  I did use a ball point needle, and I'm not sure it's totally necessary but seemed like if that would improve the final product I might as well go for it.

Overall it is a functional result but definitely a quick job - the fly bias tape is a bit funny and I didn't cut the top above the elastic totally straight since I shortened it by guesswork.  I'll admit I still don't own any kind of a ruler except for my measuring tape.  My next attempts at knits will probably be tshirts as another project that will be quite straightforward.

Speaking of which - I went to a conference in Wellington last weekend, just for a day.  Quite a rushed day because of course it was a priority to get to the fabric store!  I had to choose which lectures to miss of the conference, and I was still late getting back.  Global Fabrics has changed its name to The Fabric Store, a bit dull but this *is* New Zealand.  And they were having a sale!  My frantic hour in the shop taught me something about needing to have a plan before you enter the shop!  I ended up with some merino wool in aqua and green, green twill for my upcoming Minoru jacket, some green wool I couldn't resist, just in case, rainbow striped shirting, and some interesting stuff for pants involving lurex threads and silk-cotton blends. 

Of course I'm totally sure I left some incredible things behind but I suppose there will eventually be another trip to Wellington, and I definitely have enough to keep me occupied already!