Finally a pair of trousers that fits!

One of my goals this year has been to learn to make trousers that fit me. At some point I will publish a long post of all the things that I have learned on the way. However, I think that it is better to start with showing the results first.

This black pair is the first actual pair of trousers after the finished toile that I am happy with. The fabric is wool crepe that I got very cheaply since a tailor had at some point sketched on it with tailor’s chalk. After a quick wash, the crepe was clean of all the marks and I had made a bargain.

The pattern is my own. I started from an old pair of wide linen trousers that fitted me quite well. I traced the pattern from them and made a toile. Surprisingly, the toile was not fitting as well as I thought it would. Then my sewing teacher Michele pointed out that the linen trousers have pockets that add a bit room for my front thighs. After ripping out the side seam from the thigh I saw that she was correct. My front thigh needed more room. I also did some little changes to the crotch shape but finally I was free of fabric bunches and wrinkles at awkward places.

To get to know this pattern I decided to make a very simple pair with no waistband and a side zipper. My pattern has one back dart at each side at the back but no front darts. I traced a pattern to the facings from the upper edge of the trouser toile (leaving out the dart parts).

Sewing the pants wasn’t really difficult but I noticed that I had to use a lot of effort to press the seams in order to get really nice and flat seams. Once again my tailors clapper was a friend.

Wool crepe is nice material but it might be a bit scratchy and it definitely sticks to any pantyhose I might wear underneath. I was lucky enough to find some leftover pieces of stretchy lining fabric in my stash and I turned it into a lining. I have never lined a pair of trousers and that was interesting by itself. The only thing that really can go wrong is that the lining pulls the trouser fabric. I had to finish the hems twice since the original length of my lining was too short. Luckily there was enough folder lining fabric in the hem fold for me to fix this.

I am really happy with this pair and for now on I will use this pattern whenever I need a pair of trousers and I totally need them! Since I started this handmade wardrobe project I haven’t really bought many pairs of trousers and my trouser selection is mostly either (cough) “shrunk in the laundry” = “fallen victim to my habit of snacking on cookies” or has rips or other worse issues. The only thing I would like to change is that I should curve the front pieces a bit at the top to get rid of the slight wrinkling. I was planning to do it but I forgot and then was too lazy to go back and fix it.

Thank you for visiting! Be sure to check back in soon to see the whole long post on what I have learned about making trousers this year. Psst! All the subscribers get notified every time there is something new on my blog!

Happy sewing!

Katja