Last weekend I got the legs and cuffs done and sewed the front center seam. The other evening I got online and did a search for help on that particular Simplicity pattern in hopes of some tips for making the waistband. I also was hoping for some clarification on the pattern's general directions, because there seemed to be a step or two missing. What I found, though, was that the steps I thought were missing--namely, when/how to sew up the crotch--weren't missing at all. The pattern is supposed to make authentically old-timey pantaloons, and in the old days women wore crotchless underthings.
When you think about it, it makes sense in the days of chamber pots. That doesn't mean I have to wear them that way. So I promptly ran a seam right along the crotch.
At that point I tried the pantaloons on, mostly to see if I could fold the waist hem over to make a casing and use elastic instead of making a waistband. There was, but I discovered a problem with the pattern. Maybe it had something to do with me sewing up that crotch seam, but I suspect it's something to do with the way the pattern's made. I was using the size 10 pattern and it fit nicely in the legs, but the front and back seemed to be intended for someone shaped like a ball. I know I don't use all the ease Simplicity builds into its patterns, but this was more than just an inch or two added from seams. Even gathering and pleating wasn't going to take care of the problem, and when I turned around and looked in the mirror, the butt was poofy and horrible. I looked like I was supposed to wear a really thick diaper under the pantaloons.
In a fit of fury, and since I certainly couldn't wear the pantaloons as they were, I grabbed some pins and used them to mark most of the excess. Then I pulled off the pantaloons and, without measuring or even trying to make it even, I cut a big chunk of cloth out of the back. Then I seamed it, sewed a casing and threaded elastic through, and tried them on again.
Above: that's the initial strip I cut out. I cut more after that but that was the biggest piece. I wish now I'd been even braver and cut another inch or two, plus I could have done the same in the front.
They fit. They're still baggy in the butt and stomach, and the leg fabric pulls in a weird way (when they're hanging up they look like they're made for a super bowlegged lady), but they look fab from the knee down and that's all anyone will ever see. I threaded a brown ribbon through the cuff eyelets, which looks awesome.
Here's me wearing them, with an old nightgown pressed into service as a chemise so you can't see how weird the pantaloons look around the waist and crotch. They're really unbecoming.
(My legs look really fat in that picture, but in the pictures where my legs look better the pantaloons weren't all that visible. That's a scab on my shin, by the way, from the other day when I tripped on the porch. And yes, I am wearing pirate socks, why do you ask?)
I started making a detachable feather trim for the cuffs, white fluffy feathers sewed to a white ribbon (chicken feathers; I bought a bunch of them and it looks like I've been on a plucking spree--my house is adrift in bits of fluff). But the trim looks superfluous with the crochet trim I've already got in place, and if I fold the trim up to pin the feather trim in place, they're not nearly as cute. So I'll use the feathers for something else.
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