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!

Deer & Doe Acajou pants review

I schemed these quite awhile before I could make the time to actually sew them. The fabric is a lovely green Japanese suiting from The Fabric Store, which fit my vision of slightly scruffy and yet very cool man pants just right.  I read through the (few) blogs available to help me out - is it just me or are old blogs vanishing as Google supplants them by paid search content??

Anyway those blogs were useful, and I ended up removing 2" from the rise. They have a very long rise. I cut size 36, no other modifications. 

I don't think I enjoyed the fly particularly.  As usual, reinventing the wheel is annoying, everyone does it differently, there are 1000 methods and I don't really KNOW one of them so well to use it all the time so I always follow the fly instructions.  The results are fine, the fly looks good.  

 

 

Pants are a satisfying sew!  Wool suiting is a great fabric to sew with, very well behaved.  I love how there is elastic hiding in the back waistband of these - which in my case is very barely doing anything, and yet it cinches my waistband in just right.  

Total success, I love these pants.  They are exactly what I hoped for - a high waisted pant that will go with everything cropped.  A new shape, because we are kind of sliding out of the old shapes and into the new shapes lately.  I've noticed that in my dissatisfaction with my current jeans.  It's good to have some basic shapes, but as the styles change it's *exciting* to have new and different shapes too, and that's where sewing comes in.  Now that my new sewing room is up and working it feels like I can do anything!  

Also a sad wave goodbye to Deer & Doe patterns - one of the best (for my body shape) and will be sorely missed.  I know companies come and go but it seems like we had a dreamy decade with indie companies backed by drafting education, and supported (or hashed apart) by bloggers with engineering minds.  Now everyone is selling a pattern on etsy and half of them are other people's patterns : (  

Closet Core Pietra pants, a review

 I was fabric shopping when I suddenly out of the blue had a hankering to make these. The fabric that drove this plan was a mystery-blend with stretch, heavy, purple.  I bought it at The Fabric Store.  I suppose it must be viscose as I won't buy polyester. 

I absolutely wasn't fazed by the stretch in the fabric.

I went forth and read a lot of reviews.  It was refreshing that there were even a number of blog posts!  The summary I got from the reviews is that this pattern has a relatively long crotch that fits nobody very well, and it's quite oversized if you go by the size chart.  I'm kind of dusting off my mental archives here and recall that Closet Core patterns are often pretty big and the size charts are not very accurate; my Ginger jeans were a size 4 and are too big around the waist.    

For some reason this all spurred me onwards.  Maybe because I was just on a boot-making course and after 4 days making something that was a constant challenge, I wanted the challenge of something I theoretically can do well.  So I pulled out my old crotch curve pattern - harvested from pants that were made to measure for me in Vietnam. I pulled out the Persephone pants too just in case because that butt is the best butt - but I decided that was too much change for one pattern (maybe next time.)

I made size 4.  My measurements are a perfect size 6.  (27-37)

The size 4 is roomy but not too too big, and remember, I used a stretch fabric. 

Ok but back up. Before I did that, I shortened the entire rise by 1" which by now is a relatively common adjustment for me, and was supported by how the crotch is too long for everyone.  Then I compared it to my crotch curve and cut a line into the front crotch about 4 cm and just overlapped it about 1 cm, to remove a wedge, flattening the paper of the pattern til it was mostly flat.  I can draw this if someone needs a picture? 

This will remove that extra wrinkle of fabric that always hangs in front crotches on me (I hoped.) 

It did - I could take a bit more, but it's not terrible! 

During the sewing, I encountered a kind of comedy of errors.  The fabric has a subtle difference between the right and wrong sides.  I think...I sewed the wrong sides of the back facing out and I noticed the legs twist.  But even before I did that, I was overlocking the seams and my overlocker blade pretty much died.  On its way down the death spiral, it took out the front seams in great monstrous messes (plus 2 overlocker needles.  I have never broken 2 overlocker needles before!)  This all led to some of the waviness in the front seam.  

I used the length of back elastic recommended by the pattern and it does seem a bit loose at present.  For the most part I followed the instructions, which I found satisfactory.  

When the final result lies on the ground it seems quite twisty.  On my body the pants initially also seem to twist, with the seams coming from the back around to the front, and they feel roomy with stretch everywhere.  My previous experience with pants that have some stretch content is that the elastic tightens on the first wash and the pants shrink for a few more washes, so I wonder if they will tighten up.  The fit seems reasonable considering that the pattern is meant for totally nonstretch fabric.  After wearing these around a bit instead of staring in the mirror I stopped thinking about twisty legs and the pants felt fine.  I had fun making these despite the debacles. 

I agree with one of the reviewers who commented that the pockets are quite high, but I can access them to put stuff in and they are big.  I will have to wear them a bit to determine if I think they are too high. 

Reviewers with more engineering precision than I have commented on the plumb line of these pants.  From what I can see, the side panel is relatively straight, but the front panel curves outward.  I would read this as a combo of my overlocker mess, and maybe some design feature, rather than assuming it's a fail of drafting.  The seams on the front feel weird when I'm wearing these, but the fit feels ok.  I'll have to wear them around and see what I think, but I would definitely eventually be inspired to make an actual nonstretch pair and see what happens.  In the meantime, I am now inspired to fix the crotch curve on the Clyde pants! I have bought 2 lots of green suiting fabric so expect some more experimentation with dreamy Man pants so I can keep living my scruffy Menswear chic life...I have found a few patterns that are inspiring me to move away from the elastic waist pants and to up my game...after the Clydes...

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. 

Waffle patterns Azuki work pants

 Waffle patterns!  A company that makes gorgeous patterns, with unusual details, and fantastic instructions.  Every time I've made something from Waffle, it's been epic.  So why have I not made them all?  I suppose they do seem complicated, and that can sometimes be daunting.  These pants definitely seemed daunting!  So many pockets! The fly!  And then I realised I could use these two separate 1m pieces of fabric and I became totally keen to overcome all and make them right now.  I allocated a weekend.  

 Chose size 38 because in non stretch fabrics I didn't want them too tight, I could maybe have done a 36 if I were using a lighter weight or a stretchy fabric.

The blue is a "duck egg" canvas from Miss Maude and the brown is Japanese denim, also from Miss Maude.  The denim, in my defense, was for shorts.  But I have no excuse for why I bought a single meter of the canvas, as I was probably hoping to make Persephone pants with it and they need 2 m. I really liked the colours together but I also wanted to be careful not to turn these into clown pants.  I thought long and hard about how many pockets to use, and how to use the pockets to blend the colours.  The side tool pockets were tempting - and I definitely had enough fabric, but I was also a bit impatient and didn't want to faff around with too many little details, so I didn't do them.  The front leg pocket is supposed to have a flap, but I thought that was dumb.  Instead, I lengthened the pocket about 2" towards the inner leg, and added a zip to it with the sort of zip welting technique.  There was a bit of mucking around to get it to work (Note: always make the zipper-hole smaller than you think you need!) but it's fully functional.

It was a full 2 days of work, with the cutting being a previous day, so 3 including pattern piece management.  Incidentally, I finally figured out a dilemma that had plagued me this week: why my patterns were wonky.  The print shop had printed single pages wrong.  I figured it out because the pocket page was wrong and I had it to compare to the other pages.  I've since dropped by the print shop who are so understanding and we are going to come up with solutions to make it not happen again - but on my side it was a serious fail of taking responsibility and measuring the square box *every time!!*

I was sick on the weekend I made these but I managed to slowly make my way through, aided by how awesome Yuki's patterns are.  Everything is clear. The fly instructions were, somehow, as always, different from -all the other fly instructions ever- (why are there infinite ways of making a fly?) but they produced a perfect result.  I didn't switch to my new-old Bernina until after the sewing machine had birdnested up the waistband, but anyway the Bernina gave me easy hems and a buttonhole, which my sickly Pfaff can't manage.  

And to my shock they fit!  Pretty well! 

I took these with me on a trip away and convinced a friend who is good at photography to do a bit of a photo shoot around his house.  He has lots of jungly nooks and was entertained enough to get creative. 

After wearing these pants around for a day, although the waist is a tad too high, they scrunched down nicely and the fabric has started to stretch a bit.  I don't think I can call these high sophistication, but they are down my usual alley as sort of intrepid urban and the color scheme matches most of what I own (except for the pinks.)  This has also led me to look harder at Waffle patterns and I think I might attempt another pair of her pants now that these were such a good success.