The Men Want Pants, Too

I am really trying to get away from, “Oh look! A squirrel!” with my sewing, which has been difficult, especially when it comes to classes. Someone will see a pattern and say, “Janet should teach a class on this!” and then my schedule goes all to pieces. I tried to counter this by getting a slate of classes on the store calendar for the first half of 2026 so I could get all the class samples made and off my to-do list. We scheduled all of the machine mastery classes, too. I was congratulating myself on having mapped out a plan, and then the store in Missoula called. Would I do a serger mastery class for them? Sure. That’s on the schedule for next month.

I taught the sewing machine mastery class yesterday, which I do on the first Tuesday of every month. This is the class I can’t prepare for because I don’t know who is going to show up with what machine. I had seven students, including one guy. He had called me just after Thanksgiving to ask about the class. His mother passed away last year and he inherited her sewing machine—a Bernina 880 like mine—and her serger.

I said to the husband that having him in the class with that machine was like having a hyena in a class full of bunny rabbits. The 880 is completely different from the other Bernina sewing machines. That didn’t bother me because I also own (and love) one, but it did mean that I had to set the other students to their own tasks—they practiced free motion quilting—while I worked with this guy on the features unique to his machine.

During lunch, he asked what other classes I teach at the store. He’s taking the next serger mastery class. As the owner was telling him about the garment classes, I noted that I didn’t have any classes for men’s garments, an observation which led to, “Janet should teach a class on making men’s pants!” The owner’s son, who is the machine tech, was also eating lunch with us. He said he would take such a class and knew of a couple other guys who might be interested.

Someone catch that squirrel.

It appears that I will be teaching a class on making men’s pants. (Janet B, you and I will have to discuss this tomorrow.) We will be starting simply, with a pair of pull-on joggers. If that goes well, I might consider teaching a more complicated pattern with a fly front.

I am leaning toward either Simplicity 3110:

or McCall’s 8636.

I couldn’t find any indie patterns I liked. The McCall’s pattern is unisex, which might be a better choice, although I think both patterns could be considered unisex, for what that’s worth.

[Unisex only works for a subset of people; most women are going to need some kind of alteration to the pattern because their shapes are so different. When I took the trouser drafting class from Kenneth King last year, there was one young man in the class. He finished his muslin about halfway through the first day of class because he didn’t have to make any alterations to it. Life is not fair. 😑]

One of these pants patterns is now in the sewing queue after the Burnside Bibs. This is fine because I have been kicking around the idea of making some pants for DD#2’s boyfriend. He is a personal trainer and has been having trouble finding pants that don’t fall apart after a few washings. I said that if I could source the appropriate fabric, I would make him some.

The baby quilt top is basted with backing and batting and waiting to be quilted. I’d like to have it on its way by early next week.