#pattern making

So this started when I randomly decided I should make a hoodie, because I don't have one. I've been rummaging over youtube videos of 'how to sew a hoodie' when I saw something incredible; a mermaid. I zoned out completely, my brain chanting 'oh my god, a real mermaid' as she was explaining something on the screen. When I came to, it hit me that what I was watching was her explaining how to measure yourself, and how to make a hoodie that fits your exact measurements. I stumbled on a piece of gold.

Prior to this, I thought the knowledge of sewing clothes to your exact measurements was something you could only gain if you went to a sewing school, or you got to be an apprentice to a master seamstress, I didn't think you could just catch it on youtube! Fascinated, I looked into instructions for pants as well, and I found that too! This is where my plans changed, and instead of making a hoodie, I decided I needed a new pair of jeans.

I've never taken sewing very seriously, but if I was going to make my own clothing for the rest of my life, it made sense to learn how to make them to measure! I confusedly measured myself and wrote everything down, and then started following instructions to make my first pattern.

I rummaged through my fabric supplies (clothing someone gifted to me because they were old or unwanted) and found these jeans! I know these got dumped on me because nobody could possibly wear them, the waist on them is as wide as my neck. And the leg holes are enormous. I checked with my pattern and realized I could actually cut out the entire pattern from the leg material because there was so much. Even though the design is so bad, these are 100% cotton, so the material is great. This is what I'm making the jeans from.

When I was making the pattern, I only measured the crotch area and assumed the lest of the leg can be made wider, so my first version of the jeans looked horiffic, and I just made a disgusted face and didn't take a picture. I had to modify the pattern to actually include the correct size for knees and ankles.

The first important thing I made for these were enormous front pockets; I watched a few videos hoping to learn by osmosis, but ultimately just grabbed a different pair of jeans to see how that's put together, and mimicked it. It turned out well! My first time adding the back pockets I accidentally added them to the wrong side of the jeans, then tried to assemble the jeans like that, turned out it looked awful, so I undid the jeans and started over. I would go on to undo and reassemble the jeans 3 times, for various reasons. Here is the jeans assembly:

They look like a pair of pants now! I then had to figure out how to add the zipper, which once again, I tried to learn by osmosis but ultimately figured out by copying another pair of jeans. Now I needed to add the waistband, and at this point I have almost no fabric left so I decided to just grab the original one and extend it. Look how short it is compared to the jeans now!! This feels criminal.

I didn't have any fancy way to extend it so I just cut it and sewed on some extra fabric. This is gonna hide under a shirt anyway. After extending the waistband I sewed it on, only to realize it's still slightly too tight, and I wasn't gonna tolerate that, so I had to,, take it off, extend it a bit more, put it back on. This is all done by hand sewing, so I was really in the trenches. At that point I decided I was Done and wore them to work immediately, only to notice they are slightly sagging down, because the waistband was slightly too wide now, and if I crouched it would get too low on my back. When I got home, I added more fabric to the back and cinched that part so they would hold on my back properly.

(they look whiter in the light but they are blue-gray)

i made these wide trousers recently, they are out of linen and the pattern is a slightly modified 1890s cycling bloomers pattern that i modified to have a higher waist and i made them full length instead of knee length and didn’t add a fitted cuff to the hem. my only issue really is that i wish i had lined them with some thin linen, just to add some body and structure to them, they are a little too drapy for my taste as they are.

on a different note, i went to take these pictures of them and it was really warm so i had taken off my shirt and only had the sports bra on, i expected to not really like the pictures that much and take more with shirt on but no! i actually really like how i look in these pictures, and i’m feeling dysphoric about my shoulders like i usually do in my bra. and i think it’s the trousers that are really good at accentuating my hips so my shoulders don’t look so wide in comparison which is what gets me so dysphoric about them.

Pattern is drafted by me.