This pattern is now out of print, but has the characteristic L-shaped crotch curve that is used for Hot Patterns pants. For my muslin, I used the flat waistband that was a part of the original pattern, but that did not work at all. In fact, when I put then on, the fell right off! So, in this version I used a contour waist pattern from a Vogue pant pattern.
Something to point out though (and I am including this photo before I make any changes), is that the change in the waistband changes where the band sits on the body. So, it actually "lifts" the back of the pant. See, wedgie:
Fortunately, though this is part of the set of clothing I have made with weight loss in mind, so the pants were constructed specifically with ease of alterations in mind. Rather than serging the back seam together, the edges of the pattern pieces were serged prior to assembly, and pressed open. This means that it will be a simple thing to go back and scoop out that back curve a bit more.
The front, on the other hand, fits just fine:
Also, I wanted to tell you a story about the giant plant behind me in that photo. My dad is a crazy gardener. He has houseplants on every surface in every room, and every year his vegetable garden gets a little bit bigger (he's up to about half an acre now). When I was 22 I moved into my first apartment, my dad took cuttings of some of his houseplants for me and brought me my first potted plants at my new apartment. One of the cuttings was a little, tiny rubber tree. It was just 2 little leaves on a stick about 6 inches tall.
Over the next years, I moved into a lot of different apartments...first I moved to Columbia, Missouri for my Masters and then to Urbana, Illinois for my PhD. Every move, I took my little plants with me. Eventually I moved home to St. Louis and still the plants stayed with me.
It's now 15 years since my dad gave me my first little house plants and that rubber tree has been transplanted a dozen times, and every year it gets hauled outside in it's giant pot on wheels to spend the summer on the porch where it grows and grows and grows. And every time my dad comes over I take great pleasure in pointing out "Hey, Dad. Did you see? Mine's bigger than yours."
5 comments:
Pretty smart construction on those pants with weight loss in mind!!
The plant story is amazing!
From falling off to wedgie? Good thing you know exactly how to fix it, I'd have moved onto another pattern (me = no patience). Now I've got that ant and a rubber tree song in my head, "High Hopes..."
Haha...the original pattern was a super-low cut pant, so if I cut it to my hip size, with that totally flat waistband they just slid right down. So, I put that contour band on, but that waist band hiked the back of the pants up because it made them want to sit higher on my hips. So, all I had to do was go back in and re-sew the rear curve a little lower to accommodate. I just wanted to put a pic of the original change in because I thought it was funny, and because I think that as sewers we often "frankenpattern" and then wonder "what in the heck happened here??" when something like this happens. So I figured I would include my mistake to help someone else ;)
Jeans are so hard - especially if the denim is stiff. They look fantastic on you.
The slacks are great. The plant is wonderful. We have moved and moved and moved. I had one plant called a "Swiss Cheese" that moved with us everywhere. I even took a cutting overseas (under cover, of course and not very legal) and it survived and thrived. The whole plant finally died last year after about 25 years of thriving and being re potted and cut up. Poor thing.
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