Achievement Unlocked: Fly Front Shorts

So the fly front has bedeviled me for years.  Decades, even.  Something about it seemed so complicated, and it seemed to require more precision than I have the patience for.  I've read at least dozens and possibly hundreds of tutorials, but it has never clicked for me.

Hiking was the main activity I had planned for our Greece trip.  Since the only non-exercise shorts I own are my Adventure Shorts, I decided to add another pair to the stable.  And I also decided it was time to face my biggest fear:  the fly front zipper.

Elizabeth of SEWN recommended the fly instructions from Kwik Sew 3614, so I bought it at the last sale.  The instructions seemed good, although when I actually started following them I realized that step 4 is missing several crucial words and phrases:  "Move zipper toward as far as it will go without puckering underneath (edge of zipper is not even with extension).  Using a zipper foot, ."  I mean really, comma-space-period?  The missing word after "toward" I can maybe see getting by a very bad, very lazy proofreader, but comma-space-period is ridiculous.

EDIT:  Thank you, Elizabeth!  She supplied the missing text: "Move zipper toward right fly extension as far as it will go without puckering underneath (edge of zipper is not even with extension). Using a zipper foot, stitch only through zipper tape and right fly extension.

I also pulled up Debbie Cook's truly excellent jeans fly tutorial to keep Kwik Sew honest, though I had to mirror-image it in my head because a jeans fly is the same for men and women, while a women's dress fly is reversed.



In the end, I don't know why I was so exercised about this!  I went slowly and completed each step without trying to think further ahead, and it came out perfectly.  I am always telling people that most sewing is not difficult, it just involves a LOT of simple steps.  There are a very few exceptions--I found bound buttonholes difficult, some origami patterns make my head explode, and sharp corners are extremely fiddly to execute--but most things are not that hard when you break them down.  And it turns out the fly is one of them.

For the pattern, I used the sloper developed in Annette Hickman's class.  She had to cancel the third session of the 3-session class due to a family emergency, so my pattern is not totally final.  The shortness of the shorts hides the fact that there is still a little bit of cascading wrinkling on the back legs.  Someday this will be solved.  Someday.  Also, the front needs a little more room over the belly.



Another thing I faced was the slant pocket.   I copied the pocket and side piece as well as the leg width from McCall 5391.  I have never successfully made slant pockets that sit flush and don't poke out, and I didn't fully succeed here.  I interfaced the slant edge on the pocket, as instructed by M5391, but I should have interfaced along the opening edge of the yoke and then taped the seam when I sewed it, too.



I retrofitted the pocket opening edge with ribbon for as far as I could reach after construction, but it is too little, too late.   The pockets poke out a bit in wearing and always will.











Redeeming itself from the typos in the instructions, I used the curved waistband from KS3614.  What fabulous drafting!  I will be using this waistband again and again.  I have been looking for years for a great curved waistband for my body (Burda's are ok but not wonderful for me).  Something about the way the grain is at CB it just snugs right against the body.  I taped the upper edge of the waist with ribbon to keep my very stretchy fabric stable.



The shorts star in another favorite photo from the trip, from our hike from Fira to Oia on Santorini.  Oia is reputed to have the best sunsets in the world, and there is a lovely cliffside hike from Fira (the main city) to Oia, where at some points you can see the ocean on both sides of the island.  Unfortunately, we didn't leave Fira until 4:30 so we had to hustle the 7 mile hike to get to Oia on time for sunset.  We made it in the nick of time! (You can see the photos from the trip here; the photos from this particular hike are here.)

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Self-Drafted Jeggings

A couple of months ago I got the idea in my head that I wanted some jeggings.  I am really not sure why this idea took hold of me so strongly, but I couldn't shake it.  I finally bit the bullet and ordered some fabric from Tissu in the UK on Melissa's recommendation.  I refuse to convert the shipping, which was bad enough in pounds, to dollars to figure out how much I paid, but I got the fabric in 3 days so I got my money's worth in shipping, at any rate.  The total cost came out to about $15/yd, which is a fair price for the fabric--it is as opaque as one can hope from a knit and has reasonably good recovery.

I have had a pair of RTW yoga pants for probably 10 years that are really perfect for me.  When they started to wear out, I tried to buy a new pair but the company, Marika, had changed the fabric content in the meantime to a cotton blend.  I have just not found cotton knits to have adequate recovery or to be good for actual, you know, yoga, so I rubbed off a pattern and made a new pair, which are perfect except that the leg seam swings all the way around at the bottom so that the inseam is at the outseam.  Annette Hickman said this is a grain issue.


The yoga pant pattern was my starting place for the jeggings.  I based the leg width on a pair of running tights, laying them on top of the pattern and tracing off from them.  Creating the pattern with its million fiddly little pieces (front facing, front yoke, front pocket facing, back yoke, coin pocket, and back pocket) was a horror and took about 2 1/2 hours.   But the construction went faster than I thought at about 5 hours.






I copied the details, including the pockets, the back yoke size, and the topstitching patterns from a pair of Levi 512s.  I made 3 templates out of a cereal box:  back pocket, coin pocket, and fly.   What is a better material for this that can stand up to a steamy iron?

My main concern was that all the piecing and topstitching would compromise the stretch so much I wouldn't be able to pull the pants on.  I set the zigzag width to 1 for all the topstitching and stretched as I topstitched.  As it turns out, I have no trouble getting in and out of them, but I don't think I'll tempt fate by doing a straight topstitch on the next pair.

I've never made jeans and don't have a jeans pattern (I don't think), so the most taxing part of the construction was figuring out what order to do things in.  I now totally understand why people gripe about the thread-changing aspect of jeans construction.  You can structure the construction to some extent so that you group items needing topstitching together, but plenty of the topstitching has to be done before you can move to the next step in construction.  I switched back and forth between regular thread and topstitching thread probably 8 times.  I used nearly an entire Guterman spool of jeans topstitching thread.



My Levis, interestingly, do not have a typical front pocket.  There is a pocket opening and a pocket facing, but the inside guts is a pocket stay that goes all the way to the fly.  So I copied that detail for my jeggings.  Because the jeggings are a pull-on, I cut the front facing and front yoke on the fold at center front, so they sit smoothly underneath the fly and offer a tiny amount of tummy control.  I cut them out of a thin black knit heavy on the lycra.





If you thought I finally tackled the fly front...well, think again.  Ha!  There is no zipper in these, but I wanted the look of a fly.  I cut the center front seam with a fly extension.  I basted above the fly extension and then pressed the extension to one side.  Using my cereal box template, I topstitched the extension in place with the CF still basted shut.  Then I opened up the basted seam and topstitched it and voila!  Fly.  Or close enough.  I based the length of the fly on the distance from front crotch of some low-rise jeans I have.  I did not want the fly to be too long.  However, it ended up being bizarrely short.  Will definitely lengthen the fly next time.








The waistband is elastic.  Off the body, these jeggings look like terrifying mom jeans, but the waistband sits fairly smoothly while worn.  Not that it matters, as I *never* plan to wear these styled so that the waistband is showing--helllooooooo saddlebags.  Even so, I topstitched at the top and bottom of the waistband so it wouldn't look too plain.


























So here's an interesting comparison:  the crotch on the RTW yoga pants is nearly *identical* to the custom-fit crotch created in Annette's class (will write about the second class when I have time).


I thought the yoga pants fit so well partly because of the fabric's stretch, but apparently I just happened to have found pants that were built almost exclusively for me on the sale rack of a Ross or TJ Maxx sometime in the distant past!

I am pretty happy with these though they are by no means perfect.  The grain is still all wrong--the bottom hem spirals all the way around so the inseam is at the outseam.  I have read that the grain should be parallel to the seams, but that just isn't working.  I placed the pattern on top of my custom pants pattern, aligning the crotches, and drew the grainline from the block, so it's now at a bit of a diagonal on the jeggings pattern.  We'll see if that helps the next pair.



I most likely will not get a new, improved pair done before I go to Portugal in a week or so (eep!), so these will come with me, but here are the changes for next iteration.  The pattern has already been altered and is ready to go.

-Pocket facing double in size (the edges show inside the pocket window, ugh)
-Coin pocket moved lower
-Back pockets closer to CB
-Faux fly lengthened by one inch
-Raise front waistline 1/2 inch
-Take in CB waist by 3/8 inch



All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Pants Drafting Class with Annette Hickman

Although I do not plan to become regularly be-pantsed, it really would be nice to have a pair or two for those winter days when it is too cold to wear a skirt even with wool knickers.

But pants.  They are impossible.  Impossible, I tell you!

It was time to turn to the experts.  For the first time in my life(!!!!), I signed up for a sewing class.

G Street offers drafting classes, one for a bodice and one for pants.  I keep meaning to develop a bodice sloper.  I haven't out of sheer laziness but feel that I can do just fine for that on my own as I have made many reasonably well-fitting dresses.  But pants.  I need some professional help.

It is a big time commitment for me:  the class is 4 hours for 3 Saturdays in a row at the Rockville location, and with Metro broken every weekend it takes me 1 1/2 hours each way to get there.  I left my house at 8:30 on Saturday morning.  If you knew me, you would understand the depth of my commitment to these pants.  Ain't no 8:30 on a Saturday morning in my life.



We started the class by taking detailed measurements.  We did the measurements ourselves rather than pair up (there are 7 people in the class, but one is a man sewing for his wife so pairs would have worked out).  As Cidell pointed out, the benefit of this method is that you learn how to do them on yourself for the future.











Then we used this crazy complicated mathematical diagram to draft them.  I have seen this type of drafting instruction before in the blogosphere and it makes me tired just to look at it.  It turns out if you just take it step-by-step...who am I kidding, it is still crazy complicated and way beyond my ability to follow.

Luckily, our fearless and fabulous instructor, Annette Hickman, took us through each step with a demonstration.  Her patience and humor made this much less painful than it ought to be.












This photo is not so great, but if you squint you can see what looks like a real life draft!  So exciting.  I felt very professional and all ready for Project Runway.






For our class this Saturday, our task is to (1) look at other people's butts, (2) read the materials in our course packet, and (3) trace our draft into muslin and mark two inch seam allowances.  We will partially construct the muslins and Annette will help us fine-tune the fit.

However, I could not resist throwing together a quick and dirty muslin.  I traced the draft onto tissue.  While tracing it I noticed the back waistline seemed oddly, freakishly narrow.  I measured it and compared it to my exhaustive measurement chart and lo and behold it was two inches too small.  I added them to the waist and blended that line into the crotch.  So any back crotch problems may be the result of that.

Without further ado, here it is:






















The waist, belly, hip, and upper butt fit are excellent.

The front crotch is pretty good.  4 out of 5 stars.  The crotch isn't totally perfect, with tiny wrinkles forming a sort of handlebar mustache right under it.  It feels like the problem is the crotch not snugging up high enough rather than a crotch shape problem, as the wrinkles are not always there (or at least visible in the mirror).  Crotch crotch crotch.  The joys of talking about pants.  My quote of the day in the first class was, "Can I ask you to come take a look at my front crotch?"


The back, well, not so great.  2.75 stars.  I've got the downward-pointing chevron of wrinkles below the crotch.  The good news is, the wrinkles do not seem to extend all the way down the leg  in a cascade of nested chevrons as seen in this Burda pant (this is version 2.0 of the Burda).  But that may just be a function of the sturdier fabric and relatively short length.  At any rate, it is about where I ended up with the Burda pattern after 4 painful muslins, so I am actually pretty satisfied to be starting where I gave up in frustration last time, rather than starting at the beginning.

I am super excited to have Annette fit these on Saturday!  It is almost worth getting up at 8:00 on a Saturday morning.  Almost.

All photos are here.

Pants. This is Why I Do Not Make Them.

Although I prefer skirts and dresses, there are times in the winter where I wish I had a pair of nice-looking, professional, trouser-y pants.  I am SO glad to have discovered Levi's 512s, which fit my body perfectly, so I don't need to worry about jeans.  But dress pants?  They do not exist.

Everyone loves the Burda crotch, and Burda fits me well in general, so I figured how hard could it be?  I traced off 02-2010-102 and blithely set to it.

V.1 Front

V.1 Back

V.1  Out of the envelope (with larger SAs, to increase size to about 40 at the hip).  There was no way I was going to document the original front fit before I let out the CF seam and cut open the front waistband at CF to release it.  Horrible.  I do not have a pants body.  Smile does not even begin to describe it.  More like grimace.

The back is a wrinkled mess.

V.2 Front

V.2 Back

V.2  Saddlebag width increase; lengthen back crotch by 3/8"; add more room at CF seam for belly; knock knee adjustment to square off inseam from crotch as shown on Debbie Cook's blog.  Front smile lines continue and little appreciable change to back--the wrinkles may be slightly less deep but they are the same shape.  It is odd how doing a HUGE adjustment with the knock knee (in the case of the back crotch, moving the inseam 2 inches toward the inside) can have no effect whatsoever.

V.2 Front on V.3 Back

V.3 Back on V.2 Front

V.3.0  Added huge wedge to back by cutting from knee up through dart and spreading; same front as V.2.  The additional booty room does allow the wrinkles to relax a bit, but the much larger back is folding over the front at the inseam.

V.3 Front

V.3 Back

V.3.1, in addition to back wedge, increased front crotch length slightly; shortened waistline by 1/2" at CF, tapering to nothing at side seam.  This helps eliminate the front smile lines.  No appreciable effect on back.

V.3.2 Back

V.3.2:  took up the back crotch by taking a horizontal dart, which lifted out the diagonal wrinkling on the legs

V.4 Front

V.4 Back

V.4  Further increase to front crotch length; removed back width wedge; shortened back crotch seam at about mid-butt; kept original length of CF crotch (too high to be attractive, I think).  Some wrinkling is reappearing at center front.  (I had eaten some cookies by this point, I'm not gonna lie.)

V.4.1 Back

V.4.1:  even more length pinned out of back crotch.  It seems to help but the center back waist is now pulled down and there is still some wad of kleenex at the back crotch.  In addition, the more the back is shortened, the more the smile reappears at the front crotch.

At this point I was SO FRUSTRATED.  I decided to approach it from another angle and tried on all the pants in my closet.  All but one had the smile line at the bottom of the front crotch. 

RTW Pants 1 Front

RTW Pants 1 Back

The best fitting crotch is on a hideous, unflattering pair of pants.  I think it has to do with the high waist and narrowish legs, but they are awful pants.  However, no smile.  Interestingly, the crotch intersection is way, way up front, slightly more than two inches below the zipper--totally the opposite of what I've been doing to the pants pattern (shortening the back crotch and extending the front).  There are some strange folds on the front inseam right at the crotch, though, that appear to be a bit...how to put delicately?... a la Georgia O'Keeffe.  This may be a result of the forward crotch.  Because of the shape, I think they are worse than a smile. (Sorry the photo is so terrible, they are a rich, matte black and I do not have enough photo wizardry to make them very visible.)

The back fit exhibits the diagonal folds present on all my pants coming from upper outseam and heading toward lower inseam.

 

RTW Pants 2 Front

RTW Pants 2 Front with "lengthened" front crotch

The other pants have the smile line at the bottom of front crotch.  Tugging the center front upward eliminates the smile (indicating more length needed on front crotch???).

RTW Pants 2 Back

RTW Pants 2 Back with fisheye dart under booty

Back view shows the same diagonal folding from upper outer thigh toward lower inner thigh.  Pinching out a fish-eye dart under the booty straightens out the leg wrinkles. 

The whole mess can be seen here.

I think I may have to give pants a rest.  I have 3 decent-looking pairs in the closet (got rid of the rest, except the hideous ones with the fitting crotch as a curiousity), though they are not the classy trousers I envision but fitted at the booty, as you can see in these examples.  They are not wool and are not lined, but they are better than my muslin, which does not necessarily seem to be getting better, only different. 

Pants!  Ugh!