Simplicity 1696

Well hello out there!  I've been spending quite a bit of time in my sewing room since retiring but clearly not spending any time blogging about it.  I need to remedy that.  So I'll jump right in with the project I finished yesterday - Simplicity 1696.

This is one of Simplicity's "Perfect Fit" patterns.  They give you 1" side seams in order to make appropriate adjustments.  I feel that this pattern fit me straight out of the gate and other than the length I made no alterations.  As with all big 4 patterns I sew one size down from what my measurements call for.  They have you take a back crotch length measurement to determine if you are a regular or curvy fit.  That doesn't take into account how tall you are, so even though mine showed me as a curvy fit I made the regular.  I think that was the right choice. The instructions were straight forward and easy enough to follow.  I wasn't sure which side of the waistband was to be interfaced and ended up interfacing the facings by mistake.  You would think it would be interchangeable but the front left is not the same as the front right.  I don't think it will matter much in the wearing but it did make a difference when trying to sew the facings down because I had no ease to work with.  I spend a long time working on these pants, mainly because I can.  I wanted to be meticulous on the details.  I made them from a cotton sateen with spandex.  They should be a nice pair of summer pants.  And check out that pattern matching at the fly!

I did add an embellishment by adding piping down the side seams.  First I basted the side seams to check for fit, then pressed the seam open to leave good crease witness marks.  Then I removed the basting and used the witness marks to sew on the piping.  Finally I sewed the side seams back up using a zipper foot to crowd the piping as I sewed.  I am happy with the results.  If I were to do this again I would finish this seam first before sewing the inseams so that I can run a line of topstitching over the side seam to keep the piping laying flat.  Now that I know the pattern doesn't need any alterations I can do that in the future. This time around I've just pressed it.

I also sewed a strip of twill tape inside the top of the waistband (between the layers).  This is a tip I picked up from an Angela Wolf pattern.  The twill tape prevents the waistband from stretching out.  This pattern has you add bias tape to the bottom of the waistband facing.  I'm not sure if it will prevent stretching in the same way as the twill tape because bias tape has a bit of stretch to it.  To be fair I didn't read ahead to see the bias tape being added when I added the twill tape.  Perhaps I will leave out the twill tape on the next pair and see if the bias tape is enough to prevent stretching on its own.

The only alteration I made is to add 2 1/4" to the length.  The pattern states it should fall to the ankle bone but I like mine a bit longer.  The pattern calls for a 1 1/4" single fold hem but because this pattern is similar to a jeans pattern I did a 5/8" double fold hem and finished it with the coverstitch, starting and ending at the piping so as not to have to sew over it.  I have fabric to make another pair.  I may leave off the belt loops next time as I am unlikely to be wearing a belt with these pants.  For a hidden splash of colour I made my pockets in hot pink.

I am very happy with the results and I am really looking forward to wearing them.