Category Archives: Trousers

Copying my favorite pants for work

  By Deby Coles | February 26, 2013 - 1:02 am | , ,
13 Comments

I’ve got these great white linen wide-leg pants.  They are old now, and a little worn, but SO comfy.  Nice and loose with a drawstring waist, they are great for the hot weather here and good to keep off the mosquitoes when eating out in the evening.  In fact they are so comfy that I wanted some just like them to wear to work – except smarter.   So I made an attempt to copy them.  There are several tutorials on the internet about how to copy RTW to make your own patterns, and these loose straight leg trousers weren’t too difficult. … Continue reading →

I drafted and made my own leggings

  By Deby Coles | January 12, 2013 - 3:48 pm | , , , ,
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You can’t turn a street corner without seeing someone in leggings at the moment, and they are everywhere because: leggings are comfortable leggings are versatile they can be worn dressed up or down they can be modest under clothing or figure hugging on their own leggings are perfect for lounging leggings are ideal for exercising they can be plain, fun or funky and lots more reasons I had looked all around for a good way of drafting my own leggings pattern, but when I came across this tutorial video from Cal Patch I knew I had found it ! Starting … Continue reading →

Pant Fitting Techniques – Part 3

  By Deby Coles | December 3, 2012 - 5:25 pm | , ,
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I’ve been following the Pants Fitting Techniques course with Craftsy.  As a new sewer, I have a lot of trouble with fit and pants must be the ultimate fitting problem – hence the course.  Here are my first two attempts: Pants Fitting 1   and     Pants Fitting 2 For this third attempt, I tried to vary the back length because I found that if I lifted up the back center waistband, a lot of the excess fabric in the back leg seemed to disappear. I removed 1/2 inch from the top center of the back waist, tapering to … Continue reading →

Pants Fitting Techniques – Part 2

  By Deby Coles | December 2, 2012 - 2:51 pm | , ,
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Having made my first test piece for these trousers, I had a better idea of what alterations I needed to make to my pattern pieces.  I re-watched the videos from the Pants Fitting Course on Craftsy, and got to work with my pens and waxed paper.  I made a lot of small alterations, here is what I can recall: Swayback adjustment – removed 1/2 inch from the top of the center back waistband. Drew out the pattern for the full legs, tapering to a smaller size from the crotch downwards. Took in the princess seam on the middle top of … Continue reading →

Pants Fitting Techniques – Part 1

  By Deby Coles | November 28, 2012 - 7:09 pm | , , ,
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I recently enrolled in a course with Craftsy.  Pant Fitting Techniques – how to get a good fit on trousers that you make from a supplied Vogue pattern.  It was a new course so there weren’t many reviews to go on, and no finished student projects, but pattern fitting is an area where I am very interested to learn more. A pattern comes with the course for a pair of slim fit trousers with a princess seam down the front of the leg.  The idea behind this pattern is that there are now 4 seams you can adjust instead of … Continue reading →