Black Harem Pants

If you have a really good memory, you may well remember these weird pants I made about a year ago. The problem I had with them was that they were grey, and soon after making them, I learned I was T4. I wondered why I hated the pictures of me at the end of that post. Now, it all makes sense. Anyways, I really wanted to remake them in black. So, I did.

I used the same pink shorts as last time as my main pattern pieces. I love this shiny black jersey material. Really edgy and great for this project.

I also used a pair of sweat pants to use as a reference for the length of the pants. I cut around them.

I did something different at the ankles, though. I curved them in slightly. This will make the pants drape differently around the ankles. I think it looks really modern.

After cutting all the pieces out, the first step was to fold the pockets in half and stitch the bottom of them.

Then, I pinned and sewed the pockets to the top of the front pieces.

Next, I pinned pleats into the sides of the front pieces.

Then, I pinned the front and back pieces together and sewed the outer seam of each leg.

This is what the seam I just talked about looks like from the right side.

Next, I pinned and sewed the "crotchal region."

Then, I sewed the inseams together in one big, long seam.

Last step: sewing on the waist and ankle bands. Notice how the ankles curve in here, and notice that effect on the last few pictures. It's subtle, but it's a neat effect.

The End.

Colorblock Black and White Striped Tunic with Pockets: McCall's M6565

I made this shirt the other day. It took about eight hours, because there was tons of planning, and I had to re-fashion the original pattern due to the fact that I have zero torso. I think it's super cute, though. It's another "bought pattern" one, so I am just going to cover details and not the process.

I bought this pattern from a thrift store over a year ago, and I've been dying to make all of the designs below, but. . .as you can tell, I started with "D." The only problem with it was that the pattern for the inner front lining was missing, so I had to make a new one based on the other pieces. 

This is one of those projects that you go, "This is obviously for sewing women to make themselves and/or only their closest friends/relatives as gifts, because no one would want to actually pay for the amount of work that goes into something like this." I mean, it's not a wedding dress, and no one is going to want to pay $160 for a shirt when they can buy clothes off the Walmart sales rack for $2! (That was my rant for the day.)

Notice the gathers on either side of the bust. Also, notice how the stripes start horizontal at the shoulders, but because of the design and gathering, the stripes start to slant toward the hips. Kind of interesting. 

This wasn't in the directions, but I top-stitched the middle panel because it wasn't laying right. The pattern called for non-stretchy fabric, but. . .I love jersey, so I ignored those directions and top-stitched the middle panel.

Pockets!

The original patterned sleeves stuck out too much, so I folded them and stitched them in a bit.

I hand-tacked the folded part down underneath.

Back darts. They were actually more complicated than I'm used to, but they turned out nicely.

Side view.

Okay, this is why this shirt took so long: The entire thing is fully lined. This is the front lining.

Back lining.

Even the sleeves are doubled. The advantage to completely lining the entire thing is to keep it stable from underneath and to keep from seeing any top-stitching on the outside (other than the stuff I did on purpose that I showed you earlier). It just looks cleaner that way, but. . .I mean. . .It's not like I'm going to meet the queen in this, you know? I probably won't take all these measures in the future for just a shirt!

Here you can see the folding and tacking of the sleeve from the inside.

The black line is the top-stitching from earlier and the other vertical seam is a dart in the lining.

Both the sleeve holes and the neckline I understitched.

I think I am going to try a scaled-down version of this sometime using my "lay it down and cut around it" method and see if I can make nearly the same thing in less time. Still, besides the fact that it took so long, it is really cute. . .and well made, if I do say so myself!

The End!

Apple Peel Black Satin Pants - Based on a Pattern from "Pattern Magic"

I got a little money for Christmas, so I spent it on a bunch of Japanese fashion construction books. Why Japanese? Because American styles are so booooooring. . .

The book I used looks like this:

Basically, to make these pants, I had to draw a pattern for a regular pair of pants that fit me, and then cut them into pieces and curve them around like this:

This makes the pants hang like this (which is why they are called Apple Peel Pants):

When they lie flat, they curve around, but when you wear them, they ripple down the outsides of the legs:

I added pockets to mine!

This is what they look like on:

I really like how they fit around the foot. The inside seam is shorter and the outside seam hangs down. (They put cuffs around the ankles on the ones in the book.)

The End!