Slender cut denim pants, velvet black and liver-colored

Looking around on the site of a webshop that sells clothing patterns I saw a pattern from Burda (nr 6933) that attracted me. Nowadays pants are slender cut, so I thought let's give it a try and ordered the pattern.

I had no idea if such pants with narrow legs would suit me, so I made a trial version from a piece of pink denim I still had in stock. 

Not that I ever would consider wearing pink pants,  But doing a trial version, you also can try your hand in dyeing the fabric into a more appropriate color, such as velvet black.

As recommended by Burda, I selected the size according to the width at waist level. The pants will closely fit at the hips, but also on the calves, so after comparing the real size of my calves with the size at the pattern,  I added a few millimeters to prevent a skinny effect.

And, since I do not like a zipped fly, I made a button fly.

The result was rather satisfactory. Slender cut black velvet denim pants. Slit pockets in the side seams, welt pockets on the back.

Here are some more pics of this model.

Since this was a trial version, I subsequently made a final edition, this one from liver-colored denim.

The sample had told me that the size could be slightly wider, some millimeters in the upper part and the upper legs and almost a centimeter near the hem in the legs.

Above picture on the left shows me setting the waistband. (Tip: if you have a fabric with a width of some 140 cm you can at one go cut a strip for the waistband, unless you have a belly size of plus 140 cm. Another tip: press the weft in the fabric before setting the waistband).

Once more: the result was rather satisfactory,

PS 1. In the USA Burda comes as Burdastyle. I do not know if they sell this pattern, but if you enter "Burda 6933" in a search machine you undoubtedly will find webshops that sell this pattern to US customers

PS 2.  If  you are from the USA you may be used to added seam allowances in commercial patterns, please note that Burda patterns have NO seam allowances. 

Trousers from a cotton fabric with very small blue stripes

Summertime, and the livin' is easy..... Our small city garden has a lot of flowers. The pictures suggest we only have yellow blossoming ones, yellow loosestrife to be exact, but we also have a lot of red and pink roses, nasturtium (indian cress) in various colors, and this year, suddenly, a lot of ferns.

Just before summer finally began this year, I made some new summer wear. My newest production is a pair of trousers, made from a cotton fabric with very small blue stripes, so small that on the pictures the pants seem to be light blue. 

This fabric was available in a fabric store we discovered when scouting the old centre of the small community of Breukelen, south of Amsterdam.

Located in a small street, the shop "De strekkende meter" (something like "the stretching meter"....) offers a nice selection of various fine fabrics and accessory supplies for people who like to sew there own clothes.

These pants have been cut as a jeans model, two front pockets, no money pocket, two back pockets with flaps, jeans buttons.

Guess I looked around enough in the garden, better go inside now, to do some cooking for tonight's dinner on the terrace. 

The pictures in this post have been printed in a format such as years ago pictures came out of a Polaroid camera. A bit of nostalgia..... 

Khaki trousers

Above picture, taken early june during an outing, shows me, for the first time wearing my new khaki trousers.

I very much like this picture, made by my partner, beacuse it has a special atmosphere, part is in focus and part is vague, and this has not been done by using photoshop. Wow !

The trousers have been made from a khaki cotton fabric, on sale on a nearby market at a very reduced price. It's a jeans model, five pockets, rivets added..

The seam at the outside part of the legs has got a special treat: one of the seam allowances of some 2 cm (0.8 inches) has been cut off in the lenght, the other part is folded double in the length and is tucked such that it covers the flipped part. 

Use your iron ! And use pins on the good side of the fabric to keep the folded seam allowance in place.

From the good side of the fabric the folded seam allowance is top stitched along the width of the presser foot of the sewing machine. 

You can use yarn with a contrasting color, if you like so, and you can also make a double stitching by repeating the process, having set the needle a little off center, a device most sewing machines will offer.

Take care that topstitching is done on the side of the rear legs of the trousers, unless you want to topstitch through your front pockets

Petrol blue pants

It's winter time, so on the market they will offer fabrics for warm clothes. My favourite seller had a collection of fabrics especially meant to make trousers, two euro's a meter.

I bought two meters of a petrol colored heavy cotton fabric. Indeed,  had to pay four euro's....

Not bad for a pair of trousers in this time of economic crisis.

The model I made has pockets in the side seams, and I opted for a very simple version, no gadgets, no extra's,...

The blue buttons I still had in stock.

Just had to buy a bobbin of yarn in a matching color.

And here is how these pants looks when worn on a day in spring when visiting the beach. 

Striped pants, unconventional fabric

These striped pants I made from a fabric that could be found in the department of the store where fabrics for curtains were displayed.  It is a flexibel material, which in terms of comfort of wearing can not be distinguished from more convential materials for trousers, like denim.

Never hesitate to undertake an experiment.

I followed the pattern of a classic pair of jeans, five pocket variant. 

The money pocket has been made from a black corduroy fabric, as are the flaps on the back pockets.

I also provided some decorative stitching with a red yarn. 

Experiment succeeded.

Lightweight pants for summer

It was still cold outside, around february this year, and I made a walk to one of my favourite markets in Amsterdam, the Dappermarkt. It is in the eastern part of the city, not as well known as the Albert Cuyp market, but the range of articles offered is just as varied and the people around represent a cross section of this district of the city.

There will always be some vendors who sell fabrics at a fair price. My favourite one had a roll of lightweight cotton, kind of écru with stripes, as in the pictures, just right for summer trousers..

I bought some three meters for less than ten euro's. Enough material to make a pair of trousers for myself AND to make another much much smaller one for my grandson.

But oops, I forgot to make pictures of the mini model, and meanwhile it is already part of grandsons wardrobe.

However, we both so far haven't worn these trousers, me not because it's not yet really summer, he not because it is a bit oversized for his age since, let's say, I have been making it on the growth....(eh, the truth is I used a much too large dummy as an example....)

Here is a picture, made in july 2012, showing how the trousers look when worn:

(The shirt is the light blue, soft cotton one,  nowadays not so light blue anymore....)

Corduroy pants

Beige corduroy pants....a good idea or what?

Corduroy can be dangerous for pants beacuse some colors and cuttings come close to what is worn by some guys I do not want to be associated with (who also drive the wrong cars, tell the wrong jokes, and frequent the wrong pubs).

Nevertheless, when I came along this fabric I just had to give it a try, and here is the result.

This one has side pockets and the back side has patched pockets with a flap.

As I said in an earlier post I don't like a fly with a zipper. I prefer the construct with buttons, which can be made rather easily.

A small strip of some 3,5 cm is sewn to the top left side of the right leg. 

On this strip the buttons will be sewn

 

The buttonholes are made in another strip, which has the same size.

This one will be sewn to the top right side of the left leg.

You need some technics to do this in the correct way, 

and stitching should be done from the good side of the fabric 

and with a nice curve at the lower end of the stitching

But the result may be fine

So far I feel happy with my new pants. We'll have some sun this weekend,  so I'll put them on, go to the correct pubs, make correct jokes and drive my (obviously correct)  car.

Pants for spring and summer 2011

When preparing apparel for spring and summer 2011, why not make some trousers from a light cotton fabric.

I had a piece of fabric in stock, found a while ago in a container with left overs in a shop in town and 1.6 meter will be just enough to make pants.

It is a lightly striped, light grey soft cotton fabric, nice to wear when the wheather becomes warmer. 

This pattern has pockets in the side seams and  making these pockets is fun to do.

Another funny item of sewing pants is the section where the two legs meet each other. I have never known how this section is called in english, because one would not learn this in school. So looking around, I guess it is called the crotch, but please let me know if this happens to be an inappropriate expression.

(double click to enlarge)

 

The seams of the front and back parts should be stitched over a limited part.

The front one just as far as where the fly begins, the back one in such a way that you keep enough room to construct the section of the fly..

 

These two stitched seams can be laid into a cross.

Stichting the seams of the inner parts of the two legs, from left undet to right under, 

automatically includes stichting the crotch (or do it in three runs, first the horizontal part of the scrotch and then from top to bottom the two seams of the inner legs)

 

When turned around,  this would be the result.

The vertical line of the scrotch does not fit perfectly, too bad, but no one will notice.

(This flaw can be prevented by stitching the seams of the inner legs in three runs) 

As I said, fun to do. And every time you learn something new.

The final result is fine. I added  some simple gray buttons, and I will wear these pants with a simple small black belt

A pair of trousers for next spring

Recently I made that flowery shirt for next spring and I considered I would have to make light blue denim pants, to have a nice combination with this shirt.

I went shopping on my favourite Dappermarkt, but I couldn't find any denim.
So I came home with another light blue fabric, which would be nice to combine with the shirt. (By the way, I had to pay four euro for two meters of the fabric, can you believe this? The buttons are more expensive than the fabric...)

This time I wanted to make a jeans type model.
 
In terms of fabric, jeans are made from denim.

In terms of design, the main features of a jeans model are 1) the typical front pockets and 2) the typical two separate parts topping the rear legs.  Both elements are shown in above picture.

Well, maybe the rivets and the buttons which were functional and not decorative when jeans originally were introduced as workman clothes, form another characteristic.
 
But all other elements (the "fifth pocket", all kind of colored stichtings, wide legs, small legs)  in my opinion are decoration, fantasy, fashion, whatever.

I learned about a London designer who recently presented male fashion with very wide legs, say  five times the usual size. But I also understand skinny legs will be hot next season.

Variations on the same theme.

I will stick to my basic model with legs which are not too wide, not too skinny. And I just will have some variations by decorative topstitching with yarn in a different color.
 
The next picture shows what the trousers look like when completed with silvery (jeans) buttons and a belt that goes very fine with the decorative stichtings..

Of course I still am looking around for my light blue denim fabric.

However, it is not so easy to find it, even in the best fabric shops in town, as if the leading jeans manufacturers monopolize the really nice denim fabrics.

A pair of trousers, striped fabric.

A couple of weeks ago I came along the Amsterdam Dapper market. Of course I had to take a look at the stall, run by a couple that for many years has been selling there all kind of  fabrics.

This time they had this nice striped one, and I thought it would be fine to make a pair of trousers from this fabric..

So I did. The picture above shows the result.

I have two basic patterns to make trousers. One is the jeans type, with front pockets. The other is the one I made this time, it has pockets in the side seam.

In my opinion, making these pockets is fun. Let me indicate why.

You start with the pattern like in the next picture.

 

The visible part of the pocket entrance is fixed in the upper right corner (or for the pocket vice versa in the upper left of the mirrored pattern), good side up.

 

.Then the item is folded vertical on the center line, and wow, it begins to look like a pocket. The one pictured here is the pocket on the left side of the trousers. The one on the right side has to be mirrored of course.

 

The funny aspect for me is, that when busy, you have to imagine all the time how to model the parts to achieve a good result. Before stitching the pocket to the front part of the leg, you have to make some mental acrobatics too. Kind of dimensional thinking, which for me is fun to do.

The pockets should be sewed to the front legs of the trousers, and then be completed by tapping the bottom of the pockets, before front and back parts of the legs are stitched together along the outside seam.

Making a pair of trousers has more aspects, but in this post I just wanted to deal with making pockets.

So with a big jump, here we are at the finished item:

frontview 

 

and reverse side

These trousers are nice to wear this winter, with the loads of snow we already had overhere.