PJ Pants

 

Okay, they are done. Started late last winter out of some deep stash black flannel. Got one front cut out...had to cut single layer due to width of flannel versus pattern pieces. Put them aside for the baby quilt, then the face plant fall, which took a long time to recover from, and so on and so on. 

When I got back to them, I had to do a major clean and search of the sewing room to find the fabric, the initial front piece, etc. I'm still not able to stand and/or work for extended periods, so it took a while to get them cut out. By the time I was ready to sew, I was thinking I had used the flat front Loes Hinse Oxford pants pattern, so just went ahead with sewing. I left out the back darts since it was going onto an elastic waist, and it's pajamas. I rarely use pattern instructions since I've made more than a hundred pair of pants over the years. 

I wanted an elastic waist with drawstring, so measured around me and just put the waistband together. Wound up pinning and removing the waistband several times. Pants waist was so much bigger than the waistband!?! I hadn't stitched the back darts, so I stitched them in. Pinned again. Still way too much pants for the waistband. Set them aside and did some mending, ironing and other things.

When I took Don McCunn's pants pattern drafting class, I remember him saying for the best outcome, waistband should be about 1" smaller than the top of the pants. These were waaay off!

After much head scratching and procrastination, I realized I'd used Burda 6613 instead of the Oxford pants pattern. A while back, I'd added a wide front pleat to the Burda pattern, which added about 6" to the front pattern when both sides were included. Aha! Sewing in the pleats made it reasonable to ease the waistband onto my pants. 

So they are finally done, and I'm ready to move forward with some of the myriad garments swirlling around in my head. So onward!