I am making pants. Pants are really damn hard. I'm using "Pattern Drafting for Dressmaking," by Pamela Stringer, which is a truly excellent book but still cannot make pants easy. I drafted a very loose-fitting pair of high-waisted, Forties-inspired pants that I am calling "sailor pants" for lack of a better name. Any ideas? I'm notoriously awful at naming garments.
Can you believe that these shapeless scraps of newspaper are going to become pants?:
(Note the brand-new dressmaker's shears. Half-off notions day at Joann's is a good day.)
Anyway, so I made some minor alterations around the crotch--or, as Natalie Bray would (priggishly and hilariously) have it, the "crutch"--and the fit is okay though not perfect. I basted and re-basted the stupid thing about fourteen times, making it worse in a different way every single time, before I finally just gave up and returned to my original pattern. Which is fine if not spectacular. When I get around to making some more fitted pants, I'm going to start fresh, I think.
One thing I've learned from sewing is that it's better to take measurements to the millimeter, mark the shit out of my pattern getting the curves perfect, and cut clean garment pieces than go through fitting hell. I never had the patience until this last year or so, and everything I made suffered for it (the reason why I don't wear any of that stuff now!). Maybe it's age? You're supposed to get more patient with age, I've heard. At this rate I'll be doing couturier-quality work by the time I'm twenty-five. Or maybe just spacing my backstitch evenly. Baby steps.
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I'll post some pictures once I've defeated my arch-nemesis, Belt Loops. I've got enough fabric for patch pockets, but I'm afraid I'll put too much strain on them with my mandatory sexual-orientation-specific body language. Pants are so complicated.
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