When I started work again more permanently in July last year, I had to go out and buy some new work clothes to wear. I was unsurprisingly disappointed that I couldn't find a pair of black pants that fit well. Shopping is the worst. At the time, I just bought a pair that I didn't love, but worked well enough to get me through winter, but it makes me sad that I had to do that, and it makes me angry to have to wear them. Not a great combination.
Being able to sew makes me think that the solution is to just make my own, regardless of the fact that I've never sewn pants before (well, pants with tailoring and a zip) and my zip sewing skills are still pretty average to say the least. As always, I thought a lot about it, and watched a stack of YouTube videos before doing anything.
I probably wouldn't have done anything, because even after all that research, pants making is still daunting, except that someone in the sewing community of Brisbane was giving away a shorts pattern in my size that looked pretty achievable. Time to give it a go? I picked up the pattern, and did the diligent sewing thing of making a trial run based on my measurements.
The first pair, made in a deep red that was leftover from making this dress, ages ago. I've gotten much better about knowing how much fabric I'll actually need for something, rather than panicking, buying too much and having heaps left over, but at least I'm using it up right? Anyway, the first pair were beautifully made, because I followed all the instructions and took my time pressing things right, but were huge. They look like they kind of fit in the above photo because I took in the waist band about 15cm in the back. I learnt a lot about making tailored shorts though, with a functioning zip, and figured out where I went wrong, so that was good.
The upside was that these beauties (after I finished them), fit my neighbour perfectly, so they didn't go to waste either. The next pair was made out of some yellow fabric that was leftover from wedding table cloths that some friends gave me a long long time ago. I've used some of it here, and I'm sure I've used it in other cases, but I apparently didn't make tagging it a priority in the blog, so meh. The downside of the yellow fabric was that it was very see through, which did not make for good pants, hence no photos.
I made the yellow pair to check the fit after I adjusted some things, but I didn't go into quite the loving detail as I did with the red pair, since I knew these wouldn't be wearable in the end anyway. Fit troubles sorted, I scoured through my stash for some more fabric to use up making wearable-trial pants and found this grey camera print fabric that mum got in a remnant bin at Spotlight one time. Couldn't see myself using it for anything else, so off I went to make it into pants.
These ones do fit and I can wear them, though because of the camera print, I feel I can't wear them with anything except a solid black or white T. Heh. Success; I think.
The thing is, after wearing them a bit, I'm not sure I like that they sit on the hips, rather than the waist, as all my other shorts currently do. Do I redraft and add to the pattern to make them waist height? Or start again with another pattern that is waist height and go through another three practice pairs before I get it just right? I don't know and to be honest, it seems just a little bit too hard. Maybe I'm not meant to make pants after all.
That said, the thought of the black ones that don't fit and are made out of terrible plastic fabric in winter time still makes me mad, so maybe in April I'll be fired up enough to try again.
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