My first me made trousers!

Some very exciting sewing news today – I made trousers for the first time!

As I’ve mentioned loads of times before, I’ve always put off making trousers, because the thought of fitting them put me off. I have a lot of non standard things going on in my lower half (bubble butt, sway back, my widest point is not my hips but the top of my thighs, my thighs stick it to the front as well) and the thought of addressing all of those was just a bit much. Also I’ve never sewn a fly (obviously, given I’ve never sewn trousers), and I’m not great at accurate top stitching.

Anyway, I eventually decided to just get on with it and to try with some elasticated waist ones, because that at least eliminates that bit of fitting. There are loads of these patterns about, I decided to go for the Sew Liberated Arenite trousers (I always read this as amirite, hehe) because I love the voluminous pockets.

I *know* I should be toiling these given the various potential fit issues, but I’ve never done this, I always just make things and then make them again, and again, until I get them right, so that’s what I did here. I used tencel from the fabric room for this, which is v cheap - £4.5 metre, and it feels great! The one drawback is the colours aren’t great, and the black has been sold out forever. So I thought if it didn’t work out at least I hadn’t wasted lots of money, just my time. The fabric is a bit slippery, and I’m not great at cutting accurately, so I did have some issues with things matching up (I also forgot to mark some of the notches when I traced the pattern, which didn’t help), but I don’t think it caused any meaningful problems. I will just recheck my pattern pieces though and add those notches on for next time.

For size, I am in the size 18 for my hips, but this pattern has massive amounts of ease, so after speaking to a few people who had made it via IG, I decided to do the 14, which still gives 4 inches of ease on the hips. I made it as is, no adjustments. The only thing I did that wasn’t as per instructions was to do faux felled seams rather than flat felled ones, because my seam allowance wasn’t very accurate, so I didn’t think I had enough fabric to actually fold over. I’ve also since read a review somewhere where the reviewer said they’d just overlocked the SA together and topstitched it down, so I might do that next time.

Ok, so fit. I am happy with the way they look from the front. They’re the right size on the thighs I think, and I like the pockets. What I’m less happy with, and this is not entirely unexpected, is the bum. It is definitely too tight there. But it’s not uncomfortably so, and given that the night before I finished them I had tried them on minus the waistband and thought they were too tight all round, I am delighted. All this chat of problems should not distract from the fact that I MADE TROUSERS!

I’m planning my next ones, and I think I understand how to do the full seat now. I might also scoop out the front crotch a tiny little bit, as it’s giving me a bit of a wedgie if I pull the waistband up completely – which I can’t do anyway because of the bum. I’m just trying to decide whether to make a short version in the same fabric, or another full length one, in which case I would need to buy some more fabric. I’m eyeing up some of the tencel linen from Merhcnat and Mills which would be perfect…