The One with the Lander Pants Saga – Part 2

Welcome back to my tale of hardship, ready for the happy ending?

At Christmas I’d asked Father Christmas (aka mum) for some beautiful navy or pine green twill from my favourite store: Blackbird Fabrics. She obliged but unfortunately she’s not a sewist and only ordered me 0.5 meters, not the 2.5 I needed (sad times). Even more unfortunately, the lovely Caroline had sold out when I emailed her to see if I could get some more (really sad times).

Surprisingly I managed to find something similar (definitely not the same quality but pretty good still) in a local fabric store so it was all systems go.

The only thing I really needed to do was re-draft the waistband. I did this following the instructions in the ebook. I was essentially taking a straight waistband and drafting it into a curved one

I sewed up my trousers, even finishing the seams with my overlocker (so fancy!)

For the pocket lining I’d used some left over robot print cotton my lovely friend Cassandra bought me last year as a birthday present.

It seemed like they were looking and fitting great, then we got to the waistband…it wouldn’t fit! Somehow it was too short – bugger.

Don’t worry, I didn’t give up, I took the one from my toile, measured again and redrafted. This time it fitted great to the waist of the trousers, but then when it came to fold it, it wouldn’t sit right.

I quickly realised why: The Lander Pant waistband piece is a thick piece that you attach to the waist and then fold over, meaning it is an equal length on the top and the bottom.  I took out my required width out of the top of that waistband piece, grading down to nothing at the bottom, meaning it was far shorter at the top than the bit I’d attached to to waistline – idiot!

After a bit more help – again @msjennmakes, I realised the alteration/drafting technique I’d used was for a waistband created from two pieces sewn together, then attached to the trousers. This meant, yet again I had to draft a new waistband piece-yikes. If you want more info on how I did this, feel free to leave a comment.

Although this was a pain, it did mean I got to use more of my robot fabric for the inside of the waistband.

You’ll be pleased to hear that this solved all my issues and before I knew it (after two broken needles, a trip to the shop when my thread ran out and waiting for my buttons to be delivered) I had my first finished pair of trousers – YAY!

My fave part? These amazing sunflower jeans buttons I found on ebay – ALL the heart eyes.

So, here you go folks, my tantrum inducing Lander Pants…

Big thanks to my lovely friend Laura for not feeling an idiot taking my picture by these walls in public!

For those of you interested, I took one inch in total from the waistband—half an inch each side. I took it halfway between the centre back and side seams.

I hope to make these again, probably the short version for the summer. One thing I’ll be sure to do next time is to cut the pocket lining down more. I didn’t cut enough this time and you can kind of see it from certain angles. I also wouldn’t shorten the legs as much as I couldn’t do the nice deep hem they’re supposed to have. I’m 5ft 2″ so I automatically shorten everything a bunch – lesson learnt.

I’d also like to point out that Kelli over at True Bias is a pocket sizing genius – perfect fit for my phone!

Here’s a gratuitous bum shot for you all:

And then just a few more pics, because, you know, I’m feeling smug 😉 and Laura did such a great job.

In the photos, I’m actually wearing another True Bias pattern, the Nikko Top.

This was just a quick test run with some scraps so I had something to wear with the Landers. It’s such a great make, I have some beautiful pine green bamboo jersey to make the ‘real’ version, which you’ll be hearing all about soon.

That’s it for now, thanks for reading.

xxx

2 thoughts on “The One with the Lander Pants Saga – Part 2

  1. That robot waistband would sell me anything. Currently I haven’t got the patience/skill set (mostly the latter) to repair a hole in my hockey bag so I have the utmost respect for you making clothes more than fit for wearing!!

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