Thursday, June 30, 2011

Pants and a Zipper

So I got my mojo fired up again by organizing my cutting table. This put me in the mood to make some pants. Well, I really had all my knit top patterns pulled out with some fabric from the stash, but I talked myself into the pants because that's what I really need right now.

Robbie suggested using the Kwik Sew 3614 shorts as a starting point since I made 2 pairs of these and wear them all the time, so I added the legs from the previous Jalie pants I made to see what would happen. I knew going into it that this might end up wonky because the legs on those 2 previous pairs of pants were a bit wonky, but I could trim them down on the muslin and work it out. I didn't put the zipper in but just basted the fly because this was going to be awful.


Well hold up a minute, this might just work out! I love them! Just have to work out the legs a bit and fix that smile at the crotch.


Maybe I'll let the side seams out 1/4" at the hips and put the zipper in. I'll check the crotch curve against my Betzina jeans to get rid of that back leg wrinkle hopefully, but this is definitely do-able!



So I make my adjustments and sew the zipper in for real since I am definitely wearing these suckers to work - Robbie will be so proud of her donated pants fabric! (Lordy, I haven't even checked to see if the plaid matches up - maybe these'll be to wear around the house after all.) I proudly come downstairs to check the fit now, and discover a little problem undoing the zipper. Can you figure out what I did?


Yep, I sewed it in upside down. Since it was right sides against the fabric, I didn't check to see which end was actually up. Ever done that? So I can add this to my list of cutting off zippers and forgetting to sew a new stop. And adding insult to injury, taking smaller side seams actually made more wrinkles in the back.

Some days God smiles at me, and other days he has a little laugh at my expense.

3 comments:

KID, MD said...

They really do look great. The zipper made me laugh, since I did the same thing recently when demonstrating zipper insertion to a class. Whoops! That would be me teaching how not to insert a zip!

Robbie said...

Lynn, the pants look great! Don't obsess over the wrinkles, you're looking good. I've sewed zippers in backwards and upside down, too.

I loved that plaid....

Dr. Fun (AKA Sister) said...

Okay, I feel better about the zipper - thanks! I'm definitely going to finish these as soon as I get back from our week at Lake Martin....and I DID accidentally get the plaid matched up - shocking! Thanks again for the fabric, Robbie!