Notes From Neptune

Well, I made my first pair of pants that weren’t pajamas.

Though, in all fairness, these are pretty much pajamas.

Fabric is Robert Kaufman’s linen chambray in a pretty denim-navy color. Pattern is the Moji Pant from Colette’s Seamwork magazine. I loved the way these were styled so much in the pattern photo I tried to replicate them as closely as possible… with a few big exceptions.

After reading a bunch of other people’s blog posts about their trials with the fit of these pants (the narrow ankle/cuff in particular) and looking at the wearing ease Seamwork recommended for the hips, I a) laughed uproariously, and b) cut a size bigger than the pattern would have me do. I’m sorry Colette, but my butt needs a little more than 3/4″ of wiggle room. This turned out to be a very good call, as I’ve already worn holes into the inside leg seams, and the cuffs fit Cinderella-slipper like over my feet.

In other mods/steps, I serged the leg and crotch seams, and reinforced the crotch with some regular machine stitching as the pattern recommended. And then, the biggie: I cut out the grommets and drawstring entirely. I’ve never had good luck with pants that required solely a drawstring to stay up, so I decided to run some 3/8″ elastic through the drawstring channel instead. So I basted the waist pieces together, stitched down their seam allowances and attached the waistband as directed, stitched the channels, and then removed just enough of the basting to run my elastic through. Tried on the pants, and wasn’t super thrilled with the way the waistband was rippling like crazy above the elastic, and made a command decision to run some 1/4″ elastic through the top “channel” (it wasn’t really meant to be a channel, as such). Best decision ever. It made the waist even more secure and stopped the rippling. Granted the waistband now looks a little more like gym shorts, but since I will probably never wear any tops with hems high enough to reveal said waistband, I’m not too miffed about that. After the elastic was fully installed, I did a little invisible hand-stitching to close up the holes I’d cut in the basting.

If I make these again, I might consider doing the drawstring as a cosmetic thing, and run it through the center channel with the grommets, and run 1/4″ elastic through the top and bottom channels to be the power behind the throne of keeping the pants up. I might also make them a bit shorter… the 28″ inseam means these are true ankle pants, and I think they’d look really cute (and be more summery) if the hem hit just below the calf instead. That would definitely necessitate drafting more ease into the calf and redrafting the cuffs altogether, so definitely a project for a rainy day.

But for now, I’m pretty delighted with these, with one big exception: this fabric is woven SO LOOSELY. I not only got the aforementioned holes in the inseam after two wearings, but the reinforced crotch seam started to fray on the butt. WTF Robert Kaufman? I ran through Evelyn’s darning program (not very neatly, I may add) with a little of my extra stuck inside, and so far it seems to be holding… but others using this fabric, be advised that SERGING IS NOT YOUR FRAND. All things considered, they’re a great addition to the Wardrobe Architect Project.