Let's Get Real

We are going to have a "let's get real" post today.  I am honest about things here on my blog, but I don't post much on total faliures.  This isn't really a faliure because it was technically a muslin, but I always hope a muslin will be wearable.... Not so much in this case.

I spent all afternoon yesterday on Vogue 1378 pants.  There are a LOT of pieces to cut out to make these pants.  

Let's go back to the beginning, though.  First, I had to find and cut out all the pieces from the tissue.  Yes, LGR (Let's Get Real) I cut them right out of the tissue most of the time instead of tracing.  I gamble and win most of the time, but it's also a consolation that if I need a larger size and can't alter the cut pieces myself, I can just wait for another $3.99 sale and get another pattern and try again.

After cutting them out, I started looking for the shorten/lengthen lines.  Aha!  Found them!  Only between the waist and crotch... none on any other pieces.  

Next, I tried my best to assemble all the pieces so I could measure the inseam.  4-5" too long!  I had to shorten these somehow!

I ended up drawing a line across all the pattern pieces in the top half and across all the pieces on the bottom half.  LGR, I really have no idea where the best places are to shorten pants so you maintain the placement of the knee and the correct shape to match your leg.

Here is what they looked like after I shortened the pieces.

Back to cutting the fabric.  There are lots of pieces and lots of grainline markings to pay attention to, so it took quite a while to carefully line up and cut each piece twice.

Now let's talk about sewing them.  It is very important to pay attention to right side and wrong side of fabric. (well duh) But my fabric didn't really have a right and wrong side, so I had to lay everything out by shape.  LGR, I'm notorius for cutting or sewing two of the same leg and I really didn't want that to happen.  There are two to four rows of decorative stitching on practically every seam and I was not interested in spending a significant amount of time with my seam ripper that day.

  

Once you get each leg constructed then there is just a traditional inseam and crotch seam to sew and elastic waist to add.

I sewed the inseams and then put one leg on.

Y'all, LGR, it looked like scuba pants, so tight.  Maybe I should just do another pair in Neoprene.

I don't really know at this point if I picked too small of a size or if my ponte knit doesn't have enough stretch.

I ripped out the inseam and sewed it with 1/4" seam allowance instead of 5/8".  That's all I could do.  Not much help.  They don't cut off my circulation, but...

I know, I know, you are going to say, "Sara, you are being too hard on yourself and your sewing.  These look great!"  But I'm really not being hard on them.  They do LOOK pretty ok, from far away...or just laying on the floor,

 but they do not FEEL good.

See all the little wrinkles?  All evidence of the way my pants are squeezing me like a sausage casing.

Then can we mention that I couldn't even get the camera straight today? (and apparently the lamp was more important than I was?)  Here is an appropriate pose I found when editing my pics.

Looks like I'm losing my balance on my crooked floor. 

And let's have another LGR moment here.  I will not be wearing these with platform heels typically, so they are really still too long.  

Here's a closer look at the seams since you can't see them in the other pictures.  I used olive thread instead of brown because I wanted to highlight the lines since they are the coolest part of the pants.

Ouchy!  It hurts me to even look at this next picture.  Can you see the sausage effect now?  

And they are not hemmed to different lengths, it's just that once they wrinkle and ride up, they get stuck.   

Looks to me like the seams are in the right places even though I really have nothing to base that on since you can't see the seams on the pants shown on the pattern cover.  I'm assuming that sideways "v" shape is supposed to have the back of my knee in the middle and it does.

That means that I shouldn't make these any shorter in the thigh, only below the knee.

As far as the tightness, I will probably just add some extra on the side of each piece that ends up being the inseam, which is probably harder than I'm thinking it is.

So, LGR, I'm kinda supossed to be on a fabric ban, but I don't have anything else in my stash to try a second pair of these with, so I have to buy something, right?  Please say yes, because, LGR, I already did.