Wrap And Go Pants

In the wilds of Capitol Hill hipness, unironically worn wrap and go pants, a stealth photo with apologies. I took a photo of the pants, not you in the pants.
Is that okay?

It has a scarf top option!

You can tie all your clothes on!

reissue in 2017

I've got another copy of this pattern knocking around here somewhere.

I am updating old posts with dead photo links. It is taking me awhile, as I tend to get bogged down in the "what is missing - OOOH LOOKIT THAT!" rabbit hole of pattern photos. As I've said, this blog is more a storage facility than newspaper or newsletter. 

Butt like a b, tummy like a d: Pants Fitting Evolves By The Year

This is for the Green Violet, and for me.

I did slap this together to get it done, and I will probably edit it later.

Shall I compare me to a basketball?

So, me and the Violet were discussing the 'sway back' alteration.

https://thegreenviolet.com/2019/02/14/decades-of-style-ophelia-overalls/

I realized that I had been changing up how I fit my pants without notating what the changes were and how I got there.

I do keep this blog for my own reference, you know.

This is my one piece pants pattern 'sloper'. It fits well enough for tights, and it's where I am editing any pants from. I can divide it into a front and a back on the side line if I need to. I can make it bigger, but I cannot make it smaller cause that's how big I am.

Like so. Well, it needs some darts.

This is the business part of the one piece jeans pattern (minus the fly). It has four 'darts' in the waistband. 

1) is a tiny 1/2 tuck in the front in the gap between the pocket piece and the front piece. Doesn't show, helps with my growing front porch belly.

2) is a slash/curved dart on the side seam. It has much function that it performs with the pocket assembly, and a long slow, mostly narrow dart that works well until we get to the top and we curve in. 

Not super sharply.

3) is the secret sauce for me. To be discussed in a minute.

4) the back center seam is a dart. The center front is straight up and down, because that's what the fly zipper wants to do. If these were pull on elastic waist pants, I'd curve that front seam cause 60 yr old Front Porch!

So, dart number 3. It used to be a three inch long narrow dart (in green), like you see in most pencil skirts. It's apex is at the butt apex. The newer version (in blue) is shorter and wider. My butt apex is noted by a heart! 

I'm unclear exactly who I figured this out from: Sandra Betzina, a Lois Hinse pull on pants pattern, the ether itself, but I learned that dart does two things. 

A dart reduces bulk where there's too much, and allows for more volume at the apex. It creates a line rather than a fold. You are trying to get the fabric to lie smoothly over your cheek. 

And if your cheek has a different shape, you choose a different dart.

I believe the proper ladylike term for me is that I have a "high hip".

I have a big butt, yes, but I have a porch. I don't have a slope to the fullness part.

I have a ledge. 

I sew for a friend who has about fifteen inches difference between her waist and her hip. And that has a 5 inch height drop.

I have about a 10 inch one (35 - 45) and it happens in about 3".

Fabric will pool above my butt apex because it can't deal with the sudden transition.

I can't put a back yoke on jeans without the curve being super extreme (or I have to put a dart in the yoke, which seemed like too much work).

We used to call this a swayback alteration, but that's inaccurate. My waist is not going in and coming out at an extreme angle, my butt is just going out at one.

My back drops right into my waist.

The heart is where the real bulge is on my butt. Not on the side or the gluteal center, but on the iliac crest. Also, my tummy is catching up with my butt.

I'm just here to report, not to analyse. 

side red lines to show difference. The left side is where I had the hip replacement, btw.

These two photos are from the Ruby Joggers pattern test, for Paprika Patterns. What struck me in this photo is the back yoke line.  The plane it illustrates is sloped but relatively flat at the center and on the left side, and rises up on the right. The side curve really shows it. I have that curve on the left, but it's farther from the side.

A longer dart won't give me the fabric I need at that point. And just like the seams on a basketball, you need more than two to properly wrap a sphere.

(rotated to give you a better idea what I mean.) Those seam lines aren't all the same shape, are they?

Atatac one piece jeans

https://shop.atacac.com/collections/sharewear/products/3d-pocket-jeans

They call theirs 3D jeans, but you know what this really is.

A Free Jeans Pattern.

With funky pockets.

As a one piece pattern.

I've droned on about the one piece pants pattern.

https://erniekdesigns.blogspot.com/2018/08/frida-jeans.html

https://erniekdesigns.blogspot.com/2017/06/drafting-my-own-one-piece-pattern-pants.html

Once you get it traced and graded, it's

LESS CUTTING AND LAYING OUT.

The new features on their pattern:

https://shop.atacac.com/pages/size-guide

Isn't it pretty!

And yes, you could slice it up to take advantage of selvage denim.

https://shop.atacac.com/collections/sharewear

It comes in several different format configurations, in size 3. 

You can alter it from there. It's shareware, baby.

Might I suggest a small donation to them?

It's pretty swell work.

Frida Jeans

This is the result of this project. It's another - here's how I did this, so I don't forget later. It's kinda long. I should put chapter headings on the sections.

This is not the first pair of Frida pants from this fabric. But those got worn to shreds.

Thus, when this print came up on my Fabric.com ad roll, I hadda jump.

The yardage wasn't quite enough to make the jeans I wanted to make.

So I used the one piece jeans pattern I kludged up.

It really almost is one piece. (waistband and pocket bits separate)

Frida will not always be in one piece here, and for that I am deeply sorry.

She deserves better.

That's the stuff. I've bought.... a lot of it over the years.

Had to piece the waistband (curved, natch!)

The theme here is: this fabric is so busy, it's hard to see the mismatches.

Until it's all I can see. Ow.

And had to piece it to get the length. I mean, I'm short, but a directional print like this eats up scarce fabric. I had to add length at the bottom of the legs. THAT's how little fabric  I had: this pattern needs 2.5 yards. I had 2.

Constructing these pants follows traditional jeans instructions.

First, the pocket bag is sewn to the 'front'

Trimmed and flipped to the inside

Rolled a little over to favor the outside over the inside. I've done it the other way to create an edge on the outside, like fake piping.

So, you were wondering about the side seam. Here's where the pocket bag stops - that 'side seam/dart'.

Top stitching

The pocket lining/facing  gets it's corner of main fabric.

Okay, you see where the pins are holding the pocket bag parts together? We'll stitch along that and up to the waist

Sewing over pins again.....

And I will serge those raw interior edges AFTER I've sewn them together.

Now I can sew up that side seam/dart

And top stitch it.

It ends up as a dart. And there's a little dart  to the right of it, over my high hip. Cause I have a BUTT and a little shelf right there

A damn busy print.

Oh Frida, I am so sorry you ended up on the fly.

It's pretty straightforward from here. 

Note how there's no photos of the fly.

Other people have better ideas on that topic than I.

I do have to sew down the outside of the pocket bags to the 'side seam'

I hate having all those seam allowances where I'm trying to install a button hole.

One previous example of the folded over waistband.

So I extend the waistband past the center line and fold it to the inside at the fly edge.

The waistband facing gets ironed over the raw end to make less lumpiness as well (rather than folding over the raw edge of the heavier outside fabric). 

I do a fake welt with woven fusible. Stitch around where the hole is going to be

Trim and turn

See? Prettier already.

Pulled through

Hand picked edges still not perfect, but it's a goal.

And THEN I iron it. It sorta glues the stitching, the hole, and the back altogether.

I have considered adding a bit of webby fusible for more glue. 

THEN I mark for the rivet button with the awl through the finished buttonhole.

Frida, I am so sorry .

Use a piece of scrap wood to do this on, for that very visible hole reason.

I've been using a dowel to hit the back of the rivet button. I can hold it better and be less likely to smash off center, or smash my finger.

Now we're going to need to finish the interior waistband

I made bias trim from the leftovers from the same fabric in a quilting weight (leftover from the shirt) for the raw edge of the waistband facing.

It doesn't match up, but you are only going to see a little of it.

Folded over and stitched in the ditch. This facing will get stitched to the bottom of the waistband on the outside when all is done.

 The last bit is the most boring: stitching the back center seam, and then stitching the legs to themselves - up and over.

My goal is to do a menswear back seam: up the back and through the waistband and facing all in one, so when I have to alter these, I have topstitching and the back seam to unpick and redo.

The seam allowances should be facing up, so they get stowed away in the waistband. Like in the photo below.

These pants were a fail, but the photos aren't too bad, This one certainly.
The lesson from those:  It does not pay to use a fusible woven to stabilize barkcloth and expect the results to have any flexiblity. At all.

THEN I can stitch the waistband down, sew the leg seams and hem them.
Which goes lickety split.

I like that jeans are very detailed in the beginning (the fly, the pockets) and get less detailed and faster as you get to the end.
Kind of like my attention span on this post.