Pants Options

Soooo, I've gotten bigger.  Not in an unhealthy way, but definitely in "some kind of way".  I'm going to attribute it to losing a small amount of weight last year (it was a tough year) that just happened to bring me down a size and coming back to a weight that's actually within my normal range.  Add that to the ice cream I scarfed down for the first 6 months of the year and hitting weights for the last two, the combination of food and muscle has added inches to my waistline. So yeah, all this is to say that summer's almost over and I can't fit ANY of my work pants.

I've been on the lookout for some good pants patterns.  All the rtw dress pants that I own and love are from the Limited (I'm especially mad that a pair that i bought  and love don't fit anymore, even though I only got to wear them a handful of times). Other pairs that I own have also gone the way of being entirely too snug.  To remedy this situation, I've decided that I'm FINALLY going to attempt to make pants for myself.  I've made a pair of linen pants for a male friend of mine and in terms of fitting, that was simple; make sure it fits the waist and the length and you're good.  But for me, I have curves (that I would love to show off) and I'm nervous about all the different things that can go wrong with them.  But we shall prevail!

The first step is to find a pattern that I think will look good on me!  Let's go through the options that I see available to me:

Colette Patterns Clover

I have this pattern.  I'm not sure why I bought them when I did.  I didn't own my first pair of cigarette, side zip style of pants until this past spring (and I owned the pattern prior to that).  There was just something about that full unobstructed front face that just turned me off, but it's growing on me.  If I use something that has some stretch to it, I think this would be a nice place to start as I won't have to grow through the process of creating a fly-front.

Sewaholic Thurlow Trousers

I've been looking at this pattern for a while but I haven't bit.  I'm not exactly in the size proportions as Tasia so it would require some effort to grade the pattern (which I learned while making the Gabriola Skirt).  And I guess I just wasn't trying to make pants before.  But I've seen some good makes on this and I think I like the way it hugs the hips and doesn't look frumpy.  Frumpy is not in my vocabulary, especially not for work.

Named Patterns Alpi Chino

These are a straight leg trouser that I just found on Pinterest. These look decent, I haven't really found much on them but they're an option.

Sewloft Emma Pant

The Emma Pant seems to be a business slacks type of pant.  It has an overlapped front closure (like a few of my Limited pants) and is a straight leg.  It also seems to a be a decent pattern though I haven't seen any reviews or makes of it yet.

StyleArc Chelsea Pant

Straight leg, wide waistband and high hip, these pants seem spiffy.  These seem like a loose fitting pant from the hip which will be good for when I don't feel like showing off ALL of my curves

StyleArc Julie Stretch Woven

This has a side zip, slim leg and wide waistband.  These seem similar to the Colette Clover but just with a wide wastband which I find to be flattering.

StyleArc Sammi Pant

Sammi Seems cool.  I don't really have much more to say about her.  Just a basic business pant.  The Clothing Engineer sewed them up and they seem to fit her well.

StyleArc Wendy Stretch Pant

This is the last Style Arc one (they have entirely too many patterns).  Straight leg, faux closure with velcro and made for stretch wovens, this seems pretty decent.  I haven't seen too many rtw with velcro and my only issue with it being on this pant is that many of my blouses seem to have too much of an affinity to velcro and it usually leads to their demise.  But I could easily change the velcro out for something that's more blouse friendly.



All in all, for work pants, I'm not pulling from a whole lot of options, which, in theory, should make it easier to find what I want, right? I left off a few that just weren't me, The Colette Juniper Pants, The True Bias Hudson Pants, and a slew of Style Arc pants (entirely too many patterns).  I stayed away from the Big 4; I honestly haven't noticed any pant patterns that have every appealed to me, they always look like they're from the 80's or early 90's and just not me.  More than likely, I'll start with the Clovers (since I already own them), but I'll be looking to try something with a fly front not to long after that.  If you have any suggestions for patterns that I've missed, shout 'em out in the comments!

Nettie Dress

Thanks to Heather and Wanett, I was able to get my hands on the Nettie pattern!  Thank my sewing life for bloggers, sewing meet-ups and an extremely giving and kind sewing community. I have a few things lined up for this pattern but this is the first one.  I whipped this up in a few hours, outside of taping and cutting the pattern out.  The most difficult part for me was attaching the neckline binding. I probably could have made it tighter in the shoulder area; it's a tad loose but it's still wearable. I used the binding lengths suggested by the pattern which Heather states is 90% of the length. Next time, with the low back, I'll probably reduce the percentage to 80-85%.

The main fabric is from Girl Charlee.  This was actually my first time having to deal with stripes and I think I did fairly well.  Even the arms match up!

The shelf bra works surprisingly well.  I had my doubts when I was inserting it, but I like it.  I used a swimwear lining fabric that I bought from Spandex House.  I'll be adding cups (or pockets for cups so I can switch 'em between this and future dresses) when I have time even though it's totally wearable now as long as it doesn't get too cold.  ;-)


I'm excited for this dress and I can't wait to wear it out in the wild!  Be on the lookout for the other variations!

Aerial Star light

My sister knows that I sew. However, I'm a terrible sister and have never made anything for either of the two that I have (must do better!). This one particular sister also knows that I tend to procrastinate about things which had led to some trust issues about requesting things to be made, but I'm glad she changed her mind on this one.

She does aerial arts and has recently started competing. Last year she had a costume made by someone that she paid a few hundred bucks for. When I saw the video of her performance and then finally saw the finished garment, I was surprised at the level of workmanship on the garment in relation to the price that she charged. I haven't sewn with to many knits so far, but I immediately figured I could do better. So sis and I talked about it and came up with a design that would be able to work for her next completion. I was excited (yay, she's letting me do something for her!).

So in usual Afro fashion, I procrastinated, but I was able to finish the garment a week before the competition. I used Jalie 3134 and modified it so that the sides were cut out. We used a blue swimwear fabric along with a sheer sparkly black for the contrasting panels and was lined with a lovely swimsuit lining (Helenka swimsuit lining) from NYfashioncenterfabrics.com (i'm only disgruntled that the shipping cost is practically the same as the cost of the fabric, but it was worth it). The hand of the lining is great and sewed like butter when I interlined it with the blue fabric for the center bodice. I also modified the back geometry so that more of her back is exposed by reducing the rise of the lower panel. I found that the pattern runs a little small; my sister has a longer torso than me but when I tried it on myself for fitting, it fit me perfectly. The size ended up working on her but I'll take this into account next time. I also need to work on my elastic application skills. I messed up but I know the general idea of what I did wrong so that I can fix it for next time.  

I'm posting some stills from her performance, I think the costume looked great, and I was especially happy since this was the first time i'd ever sewn a garment like this. (fun fact, this is all sewn on a regular machine). Just a warning, there's some serious muscles about to be shown in these pics so try not to be as jealous as I am of her!

 

Under Pressure

So it would seem (and by seem, I mean that it's totally true), that I like to procrastinate and work decently okay under pressure.  My previously mentioned friend who's getting married in a few weeks (3 weeks), asked me to be the hostess/greeter of her wedding.  She was kind enough to give me free reign to create my own dress. The two dresses that her brides maids are wearing are these.

My thought is to make something similar.  I found a pattern at JoAnn's, Burda Young 7388, that is carries some of the same style elements.

I'm going to do a mix of the two, a gathered sweetheart neckline bust but a flat waist and a gathered skirt.  The material is a dark blue silk dupioni from fabric.com and will be lined with a black polyester lining. I'm actually going to belt the dress with a blue African print fabric that I bought and I'm hoping it's not going to look like too much with the gathers and the belt. And I was thinking of piping the top of the neckline and the seams for the waist in the print fabric to tie everything together.

I haven't seen too many people make this dress up on the interwebs and the ones that do seem to run into some issues with the pattern pieces.  I'm going to muslin this up since this is the most expensive dress I've had to make since I started and take care of some fit issues in the bodice.  It's boned and I'm not too adept at it, only used it once, so we'll see what happens.  All in all, i'm excited and a bit worried.  Fabric should be here in a couple days and then it's off to the races!  I'll let you know how it all goes!

Car Caddy

I finished up a Car Caddy via Homemade By Jill.  The little boy that I made it for loved it and was excited for his cars to have a street to drive down.  It was cute to see him actually play house with the it, using the parking spots as a place to take a nap.  His dad liked it too. It was a nice portable way to carry a few cars on trips.

I used some denim from a pair of shorts that I gave up on making.  The applique fabric was some leftover of something from over 10 years ago (which of course I forgot to take a picture of).  It was actually already cut into quilting squares, but since I don't quilt, it's a good supply of scraps.  I bought the felt, paint, piping and webbing at JoAnn's.  I love it when I get 30% off my total purchase, you really can't beat their coupons and convenience. They're everywhere!

The pattern was simple, but if I were to make it again, I would make the road a little wider. If I had more time, I would thrown his name on there, and maybe a building and a tree or two.  But simple is better (less time, more blank slate for imagination) and this project was relatively quick and successful!

Welcome!

This is the blog where I will be documenting my craftiness, my green thumb and all around smartness.  My goal this year is to create more, to be a producer instead of a consumer so this will be one aspect of that.  I have a few sewing creations that I've completed over the past year or two so I'll catch you up on those later, just so you can see where I'm coming from.  But this year I will aim to create at least ONE thing per month, whether it be knitting, sewing, crafting, etc...

But what inspired me to come here (even though the actual blog was created almost a year ago, this is my first post), was a Dutch website that creates African Print cloth.  Let me start off by saying this, I support people looking at markets and deciding how to make their niche, however, I do wish that we could get a stronger presence of African companies selling African Print cloth.  I made a trip into NYC a month or so ago to buy cloth and although the store was bursting at the seams with cloth being sold by Indians,  the majority of the stuff there was manufactured by the Dutch.  This is a big market both inside and outside of the African Continent, and it'd be nice if someone on the continent could tap into that a lot better than what I see today.

That being said, I was directed to a website today that made me drool. It was love at first site.  One, because of the beautiful cloth.  Two, because of the great ways that they're using it and how they're inspiring me to use it.  Vlisco is the website and my goodness, they're expensive.  But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, "The Vlisco strategy is aimed at enabling well-to-do African women to experience the brand in all her facets..." I figure I'll buy some of this "ankara" fabric after I've gone through my stash and feel that my skillz are up to the expensive challenge.  Plus, I'll want to have a specific event in mind in which to wear the beautiful creation to.

So that's it for now.  I will continue to expand my crafty knowledge and I'll bring you all along for the ride.  Pics and such soon come!