Sunday, September 11, 2011

The Pants are Finally Finished!

Okay, I'll start from the beginning, because there are 2 separate issues here. This is a Frankenpattern using Kwik Sew 3614 shorts and the legs from Jalie 2909. I've been working on the pants upstairs in my sewing room, but my full-length mirror is downstairs in my bathroom, so it's been hard to make adjustments and check them quickly. I resorted to taking pictures like this upstairs to get an idea of what I'd done. The wrinkles were all I could see (plus the poor posture and flat derriere), and I'd get very depressed.


But then I'd check downstairs and feel better about things - I like the legs, even if they are wrinkley.


So I finally bought a full-length mirror for upstairs and that will hopefully get hung today. Then I'll work on my picture quality, because lighting is a little tricky there. But now I can slap these things on and quickly check them, which speeds up my sewing and doesn't interrupt the mojo.



So that brings us to last night, when I realized that even if I can't get these things to be perfect, they're certainly good enough to wear and deserve to be finished. So I'm comparing them to a pair of pants I bought at Dress Barn and wore once before deciding they feel awful and are way too tight to wear to work.  Check out all those wrinkles - bleh.


Now compare my muslin, which still has some wrinkles, but nothing like the RTW's.  And I actually could make the crotch wrinkles go away if I lift the waistband up. 


 Side view - I hope you're not eating lunch - I get nauseous looking at this.  Sewista - I don't want to bring back your morning sickness - maybe you should bail out now!


 And the muslin - still with those hip crater wrinkles, but I don't even care about those anymore.  (Funny how crotch problems can take your mind off hip problems.)


Oh, did I actually go through an entire day at work with these pants?  At least I was wearing an untucked shirt.


Okay, these actually do fit much better.  I don't know why I got the little indent at the center back seam, but I'm okay with it.  And I see that I have that back leg wrinkle no matter what pants I wear.


So this is the total picture, and other than powering out a couple of wrinkles near the knees where the fabric was folded, I'm happy with them.  I even did a nice hem that works with these flats or the Nuncio heels Sheila made me buy (she's very persuasive when it come to shoes).


 I believe I shall have 2 glasses of wine before I hem anything from now on, since that's what I did last night.


So, from here I've decided that I'll try the crotch curve from the Betzina jeans on the next pair, except I've got to figure out if a jeans crotch is the same as a trouser crotch - anyone?  Will it fit too close?  And I'm going to try a different leg possibly.

But maybe I'll make a quick shirt first....


5 comments:

Pam said...

I love the pants - and I NEVER tuck things in! Great job and I am glad your SOJO is back in spades! I wouldn't worry about the small wrinkles in this iteration - you'll fix them next go around! Enjoy your success!!

Robbie said...

In the word of my grandchildren AWESOME!!!!

sewistafashionista said...

Pants are so trying - mainly on the ego. Yours came out well and better than most RTW. And you barely have a tum at all. Now it is my prego belly in profile that is making me wonder if anything that extended can return to standard size?

Dr. Fun (AKA Sister) said...

Thank you guys! And I wore my orange retro shirt to dinner last night - I'm getting bolder!

Sheila said...

The pants look great on you. Honestly, I think we are too hard on ourselves and need to understand that wrinkles are part of pants unless they are skin tight...lol. Great Job though.