Pants—What Have We Learned?

I got my summer tires changed over to snow tires yesterday morning. On the way in to town, one of my tire pressure monitors lit up (how timely). I let the guys know when I got there so they could check it out. It turned out to be a small screw stuck in the tire.

This tire place delivers service. I am only there twice a year, but as soon as I walked in the door, the owner pushed a piece of paper over to the guy next to him at the counter and said, “This is for Janet’s car—go get her tires started.” How he knows my name is beyond me, but he does. I usually sit in the waiting room with my iPad and some knitting while they change the tires. Typically, it takes about 45 minutes. One of their employees was an hour and a half late yesterday, so I was there for two and a half hours. They apologized profusely for making me wait, but they also found the screw in the tire and repaired it for free. I wasn’t going to complain. I go into that situation twice a year knowing that I might have to sit and knit for a while, or read a book, so I deal with it.

Attitude is everything.

I stopped at sewing on the way home. Our checks were all ready for us. Between teaching and the sale, last weekend was fairly lucrative.

I came home, had lunch, and got started on the Éléonore pants. About twenty minutes into them, I decided they won’t work for this class. The issue is that they are very fiddly. There are back yoke pieces, front mock pockets, a fake front fly, and everything has to be topstitched with two parallel lines of stitching. And that didn’t include the back pockets, which I left off this muslin. When I prep for a class, one of the yardsticks I use—no pun intended—is how long does it take me to make something? I time myself, then multiply that by at least three. This is an all-day pants class, yes, but the construction is going to take so long that I worry there won’t be time to address fitting issues. Also, this store has a tiny, tiny classroom area, so having everyone on both sergers and sewing machines is tricky.

[Conversation over dinner revolved around why anyone would have fake pockets on their pants. The husband thinks fake anything is a waste of time and wanted to know why there weren’t functional pockets in the pattern. Personally, I am not obsessed with pockets in clothing but I suppose he has a point.]

I finished the pants anyway. I’m not in love with them, but I am glad I made them so I could see how they went together.

It’s back to the drawing board. I am going to try this pattern today:

This one is dead simple: two pattern pieces and a length of elastic. It’s also a Palmer/Pletsch pattern, so it has fitting tips included. I’m going to make a quick muslin for myself, and if I like the way they fit, I’ll make up a pair in a nice ponte for the store to display. The waistband on these is similar to the Jalie Renee pants, with darts and elastic, although the waistband isn’t as deep. These can also be made entirely on the serger. The goal of this pants class is the same goal I have with my introductory T-shirt classes. I make sure that students understand that fitting is a process and that they are unlikely to nail it perfectly on the first try, but we have to start somewhere.

If this pattern fails, I will just go ahead and use the Renee pants pattern. I’ve taught that class here twice and it has gone over well both times.