Slouchy pants

Sewing pants is comfort sewing for me. I learnt to sew by making elastic waisted shorts and made way too many of them in my (rather daggy) younger years. Anyway, it means that the shapes of all the pieces makes sense and the construction process is easy. I upped the style factor a little this time and made Alice & Olivia single-pleat, wide legged pants (Vogue 2981). I must confess to being a little ignorant of Alice & Olivia...I don't shop in the high end shops, so I don't even know if the label is available in this part of the world. I did scour the internet for piccys, so you can click here for photos of the originals.







I am ridiculously pleased with the back welt pockets. I have never sewn welt pockets into trousers before...why ruin a perfectly good pair of pants with some bodgy pockets? Not any more. I read "No fear welt pockets" by Ann Steeves (Threads Dec 05/Jan 06). Her method creates a welt opening, using silk organza, and then later adds the welts with the help of a glue stick to ensure the correct position. It sounded like something I could do, so wham bam, here is a picture of my test sample.



The other thing I did differently was edge the inside of the hem with grosgrain ribbon, as described in "His Tailoring Tips for Her" by Lynn Cook (Australian Stitches, not sure which issue because I rip out the articles I want and they don't label each page??). The ribbon extended below the hem ~ 1mm, which reduces wear on the hem. I thought it would be useful here because I was using a longer, slouchy length and I also thought it would help the shape of the leg, given that my fabric was quite drapey.