De Gene Zijde

Monpe pants part 1: pattern and sewing

Here's how monpe work: You cut four mostly identical rectangles, fold over the upper outside corners, join the rectangles in the middle front and middle back, add a square gusset to add to the crotch depth, close down the legs, and add ties. Optionally, the legs can be tapered to be narrower. The front piece is tied in the back, the back piece tied in the front, and the waist is adjusted to your true waist circumference with pleats, darts, or elastic. Theoretically, you don't even have to make any other cuts beyond those four rectangles / gusset / ties, which makes this a fantastically low waste pattern.

I made my specific monpe from midweight wool fabric and lightweight linen, added tailored pleats, and hid the slits in the side seams with further lining, so they're a bit more engineered beyond "stick rectangles together". This is fairly heavy fabric, so I wanted to reduce bulk around my waist as much as possible and wanted the wool to drape nicely. I could have added pockets, but... forgot!

People have asked about fabric recommendations, and as far as I know, you can use basically anything. Linen. Quilting cotton. Wool. Denim. Handspun handwoven hand-dyed fabric, obviously, and I'm totally not glancing at several of my mutuals here. Each fabric will behave a bit differently - with thick wool, you might want to cut off the triangles at the top and not just fold it under to reduce bulk; with linen, that would be unneccessary. I lined my wool monpe with linen because the pure wool would have been a bit too scratchy otherwise.

These can be sewn completely by hand, if you prefer - it's exclusively straight seams. It's very easy. All fabric edgs in this can be finished however you want - I serged all my edges on both top fabric and lining, because both are rather fragile and I wanted less bulk. You can also make french seams, or felled seams, or just zizag the edges if you've got stable enough fabric.

Here's the basic pattern diagram for monpe.

And here's how I have adjusted it according to my own measurements:

I really do advise making a mock-up version from cheap fabric first, because you will likely have to fudge around with the gusset a fair bit to find what works for you.

You need these measurements:

waist (the narrowest part of your body)

hip (widest part of your body)

waist to ankle (leg length)

crotch depth (length from front waistband, between your legs, to the back waistband)

Check if 1/2 of your hip width (= one trouser leg width) actually fits well around the middle of your thigh! If not, add a few more cm, so your trouser legs sit comfy around your thighs. You can also add a cm or two to your basic rectangle width, for more roomy pants. If you're fat this is a neutral term, measure your waist and hip width while sitting down - more soft tissue to move around means your tissue will behave differently between standing / sitting.

The rectangles are cut like this:

2 x front: 1/4 of your hip width x leg length

2 x back: 1/4 of your hip width x (leg length plus ca. 2 cm)

The back pieces are a little bit longer than the front pieces to add more room for your butt. :) You can also ignore that, like I did, and make four fully identical rectangle pattern pieces.

Remember to always add seam allowances.

Optional: Mark the following points on your fabric, to make variations to the mock-up easier: edges of the folded-under corners; start of the square gussets on all legs; start and end of the leg taper.

Ok, once you have your fabric cut, we can start:

Fold over one upper outside corner of each leg rectangle - my folded triangles are about 25 cm by 5 cm. (If you use really heavy fabric, you can also cut them off and finish the raw edges.)

Close the middle seam in front and back, in a straight line from waist to wherever your gusset should start. Where is that? About half of your crotch depth minus a few cm. Don't worry, we'll adjust this later.

Ok, add the square gusset:

Gusset size: around 20x20 cm

I cut my gusset 21x21 cm and placed it 31 cm away from the top edge.

Adding square gussets is a bit complicated, but here's an excellent video by Morgan Donner on how it works: Watch it. Trust me, watch it, then it will make sense.

Close the inside leg seams:

Here, you need to decide if you want to taper your legs, and how narrow you want them to be. I started the taper at around my knees, tapering down to a 43 cm hem circumference. If you're making a mock-up, you can simply make one leg tapered and one leg straight, and compare the difference directly.

Close up the outside leg seams, from where the folded corners start, to the hem. Add the optional taper at the same place you started it on the inside (that's why marking it ahead of time is a good idea).

Congratulations, you have the rough approximation of trousers! Go take a break and drink some water.