These aren't for the SWAP. I needed an extra pair of trousers that I could wash easily and would be suitable to wear to work during icy and snowy weather. The site is large and my job requires me to visit people across the site on a daily basis, so I have to wear flat shoes in icy weather. All my good trousers are hemmed to wear with high shoes and in any case, I prefer not to wear the nice wool trousers in icy weather as the site is heavily treated with road salt for safety reasons and the salty slush gets up the back of the trouser legs, sometimes leaving permanent stains.
On Saturday, I had a root around in the stash and came up with a striped poly stretch suiting. Its brown on one side and dark wine on the other. The brown side is matt, the wine side slightly shiny. The stripes alternate between pink and cream. I used the brown side for the trousers.
It was a remnant and the pattern pieces only just fit on widthwise, with absolutely no room to match the stripes because they are so widely spaced. I cut them out on Saturday, and sewed them up on Sunday. I am not happy with the result and rather annoyed at myself for messing them up so badly. Once they started to go wrong, it turned into a catalogue of minor errors and annoyingly obvious mistakes that I know better than to make. I don't know how the discovery of a really bad mistake affects other people, but once I realised that they were doomed due to the stripes being non-matching, I lost the will to make them perfect and just rushed ahead to get them done. This of course meant that Murphy's Law took effect and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. And of course all the time I am cursing these trousers for being stubborn and awkward, when I know perfectly well that its ALL my own fault and not the fault of the fabric/thread/machine/iron or whatever implement I am currently blaming for the mistakes occurring.
Anyway, the trousers are my standard trouser draft, but I used the version without a waistband, (the pattern has a section that can be flipped up or down for waistband or non-waistband styling) and just put a narrow band (5/8 inch finished width) at the waist. The band was cut lenthwise down the fabric because that has no stretch, and was cut in two pieces. Stupidly, I didn't check the stripes matched. However, cleverly saved the day by pulling the stripe threads out of the fabric, leaving a plain band. Stabilised with cotton interlining, which wasn't too keen on sticking to the fabric, but decided to remain in place once threatened with dire damage if it failed to behave. Invisible zipper in the left side seam. Not particularly invisible on this occasion. No lining because I didn't have any stretchy lining. Hemmed for flat shoes, as per the original plan.
In their defence, these trousers do at least work well with multiple existing items; one jacket, one sweater, one cardigan, five polo necks, one cowl neck, and two blouses to be specific. So it is particularly galling that they went wrong, because at least some of the items with which they work were orphans in need of friends. Ah well. You win some, you lose some.
3 comments:
How frustrating and I can confirm that once I loose interest in the garment under construction it is errors all the way.
they aren't Jogging Bottoms - so clearly a total success :D
that being the other thing you could wear in bad weather...
Look OK for the purpose, I think you are bieng a bit hard on yourself. Imagine what they'd cost in RTW - where the stripes wouldn't match anyway unless they were high end.
Post a Comment