#sewing trousers

[arianaofimladris]

Apparently it was a sewing weekend. I almost finished a shirt for my brother, but I abandoned it today in favour of trying to sew shorts. I even succeeded.

The pattern I used takes into account different body shapes. In my case, it is the extremum where my waist is more than two sizes smaller than my hips at the widest point - meaning I don't own high-waist fitting torusers becuse it is impossible to buy such trousers for me.

I wanted to test the pattern on something easy, so I picked the simplest version+pockets. I used viscose leftovers I had from making a skirt two years ago.

Now I have shorts that fit perfectly at the waist and shorts with pockets big enough to fit a smartphone inside. Purrfect.

[brigitttt]

quick little 18thC pocket for work :)

[gaytobymeres]

Ordered a suit off vinted for £5 for being the picture of dorian gray for Halloween and it fits wayyyy better than I imagined. And I finally have the opportunity to wear the cravat I bought last year. I’ve also realised that the suit gives me a sort of Psmith-esque appearance so maybe I can go as him next year

[badassindistress]

And we have trousers!

I'll leave it here for today, although they could do with an extra hook and two buttonholes.

[fishthegenderwitch]

I bought myself a couple pair of pants a few months ago and they fit me perfectly then, however I have thickened around the middle over the past few months and the pants no longer fit properly. They squeeze my innards up into my rib cage and it is very uncomfortable and I've decided for good that I hate conventional pants

Worst pants.

So to fix that I am going to be making myself a couple of pairs of pants next week on my days off. The best pants are big loose floppy pants, and those go with my comfy Goblin aesthetic anyway. The only thing that I'm going to need to add to the comfy pants patterns I have is many large pockets, so I can still carry all my stuff

Best pants. (Still insufficient pocketry.)

I know part of it is that I've got a more Loaf lifestyle than I'd like, so I'll be adding a couple hours of exercise to my week as well as making comfort pants. And maybe in a few months the icky pants will fit better

But for the immediate future I need pants that don't bisect my body like a rubber band around a hardboiled egg

[silverfoxstole]

Believe it or not (and you probably won’t but it’s true), before I got McGann approval for my Eighth Doctor cosplay last month I hadn’t actually put a photo of it side by side with the original. Looking at them together I’m really proud of how well it turned out!

[distracteddaintydemon]

So. Do y'all know that thing that women trousers/plants/jeans tend to wear off and tear in crotch area?

I think I may know why.

I got my hands on a textbook for cutting patterns construction (circa 2000, based on 1980's norms) and you'd never guess. Mathematics for pants has waist circumference, hip circumference, hip circumference corrected for belly, waist height, hip height, crotch height, knee height. But it doesn't have thigh circumference. It assumes thigh is generally conical from crotch to knee. Uniformly shaped.

Which is simply not true for large subset of people.

It's only one textbook and I'd need to acquire different ones to check but. I think I'm onto something here.

[crowtoed]

One of these days I'll work up the courage and eye to pattern-match a bodice or a lapel.... but in the meantime, practicing on patch pockets gives me little pops of confidence. Making my second vintage-style camp shirt from Wearing History's Smooth Sailin' pattern (which has extended sizing, thank god). The material is a cotton lawn from Birch Fabrics, designed by Mustard Beetle.

[menuliso]

hello (yuri-fies your bkdk)

[mslanna]

Pinned the gold rope to the back. Gods it looks scrungly. 😩

Good news? I ran out of thin rope. yay 😐

[mika-makes-things]

Green trousers part 3:

After getting the darts, pockets and crotch seam ironed, I moved on to sewing the side seams and inseams. I forgot to take process pictures of that part, but it was pretty straightforward anyway.

Next was the fly. I sewed buttonholes (by hand, because my machine’s buttonhole setting scares me) into one side of the facing, folded it to the inside and topstitched it down, then sewed buttons onto the other side. Luckily, I found enough buttons of the right size (and flat enough to not create bulk!) in my stash.

Instead of adding a waistband, I sewed twill tape to the outside of the waist as a reinforcement. I folded the fabric to the inside just below the tape and topstitched it down. I finished the hems with some green bias tape, topstitched on the outside and whip stitched on the inside. Lastly, I added the top button and belt loops.

Then came the most time-consuming phase of this project: hand-finishing the raw edges with a whip stitch. I forgot to take out some of my thread marking and basting stitches before I did that, so I ended up having to wrestle with those for a bit afterwards. I’m fairly certain there are no contrasting threads visible on the outside anymore, though…

And that’s that! The trousers are finished! All in all, I’m very pleased with how they turned out, though there are some things I would do differently.

[timetravelbypen]

Brain, my list of sewing projects is Very Long, why did you give me "hey wouldn't it be fun to translate the Thirteenth Doctor's costume into a historical one?" Because I mean. Yes, it would be, but also NO, TOO MANY PROJECT IDEAS.

[yoshi-geekdom]

Sewing pockets into all of my pocketless bottoms;

Starting with this pair.

One pair down...

11 more to go!

Wish me luck!

[badassindistress]

Making some fall front trousers to keep the horrors at bay.

[bmwiid]

Well, I found out interesting things about this practice pair of 'chino style' shorts.

1st: This fabric is a nightmare to work with, its like... soft boxer-shorts style brushed cotton, thin and floppy and moves SO MUCH that pattern matching would be impossible for anyone, and not just me who can't do it.

2nd: I cut this pattern out on a UK 18 which should be a LITTLE loose on me, as I've been making bottoms out of a 16 for a could months. But as the pattern is a 'missus' style I think they are tight on sizing and the crotch is WAY up in there.

3rd: Big 3 are allergic to decent fly instructions. Like, its the HARDEST part of the pattern, but you put all the instructions into one TINY little box and three or four lines. 10/10 would NOT recommend.

HOWEVER, I still am pleased with them! As test pair out of spare fabric I have too much of, they are cute and will do for bumming around the house in the hottest of summer days. I learned how to do a welted pocked, I enjoyed the process and by taking my time and slowly working on a little every day I didn't burn myself out on the hard parts, or give up half way in, which was tempting with this fabric.

I will be making pj bottoms out of this, and boxers and any easy elasticated waist things that I can, because I got like 5 or 6 meters of this left.

The pattern was: Simplicity S9709

I would rec it, but def MEASURE yourself and don't just go off what you've been cutting with other patterns.

I did B but didn't bother with the side D rings because I knew it wasn't going to be a good enough fit for them.

[redvanillabee]

Feeling like I've fallen into the deep end realising that I can say 'I have sewn upwards of 20 buttons in the name of fandom'.

Trying to make old timey suspenders work in 2024 is so much work.

Which leads to an interesting conversation I once had with @historymaiden. Apparently they stopped selling men's trousers with suspender buttons pre-sewn in around WWII due to rationing. In other words, for the entire duration of Agent Carter, any male character you see wearing suspenders are either (a) wearing a pre-war garment, (b) had someone else sew it for them, either by a mother, or a girlfriend/wife, or they paid someone to do it, or (c) they have a little cookie tin sewing kit at home.