Tag Archives: capris

July 24, 2012 · 11:33 pm

Next Size Up II

Jeans. She has them.

Tyo’s replacement capris are finished. Or is that Bermudas? My shorts terminology is lacking. Can I blame being Canadian? The Patrones magazine calls them “pirata,” which I think is totally awesome.

They are pretty standard jeans-styled capris, with a few additional details.

Rear view

Funky, asymmetrical pockets are part of the original pattern (I left off the flaps this time. Not even for lack of fabric—I made them, but didn’t put them on. I don’t really like their shape.) I should’ve piped the pocket edges, although getting the piping crisp around all those corners would not have been fun. As it is, you can barely see the pockets are there. Hmm. I do like the piped yoke—I should’ve piped the waistband, too.

I had better not dwell on the missed piping opportunities. That way lies madness. I added one of those weird, pointless straps between back pocket and side-seam, at Tyo’s request.

I’m too cool.

And then managed to photograph her only from the other side.

Luv

Damn she is cool.

I love who I am.

Oh, wait, I’m supposed to be discussing construction, not just posting pictures of my cool kid.

Inside front—pockets, fly construction, buttonhole elastic, bound-edge waistband.

My fly interiors are not generally things of great beauty, and this one isn’t, either, although it’s one of my better ones. I won’t get into how many needles I broke as soon as I started trying to do zig-zags—bar tacks, buttonholes, attaching the belt loops. There was much howling and unpcking. I HATE unpicking bar-tacks. It got better when I ran out of topstitching thread and just used regular blue thread. I may do that for all bar tacks/dense zig-zags in the future. The buttonhole elastics emerge from gaps in the seams where I had to piece the waistband.

Drawstrings

I added buttonholes on the outside before stitching the hems, to run the drawstrings (aka shoelaces) through. Back when I made the first pair of camo capris, I bought a metre or so of narrow black twill-tape for the drawstrings. I couldn’t find it when I finished that project, so wound up using shoe-laces instead. It’s kicked around on and off since then, (notably being used in this project) but again today I couldn’t find it. I did, however, find more shoelaces. (And I can never, ever find shoelaces when my shoes need them…)

Front closeup

Can you see that I screwed up the cutting played with the grain on the front pockets? No? Maybe just as well.

Pattern alterations.

Remember my pattern alterations?

Back view

Ok, here’s how they wound up looking. (If you can see through the print, which you probably can’t.) Rear rise is good—not any too high, could probably have gone a little higher, but coverage is maintained even when she squats down. Yay! Yoke curve-in is good but could’ve been more extreme—there’s still plenty of extra ease at the waistband that isn’t there at the hips. There is still some slight wedgification happening—not enough to be uncomfortable (yet) but I can tell that the crotch curve is not perfect for her. Presumably scooping is in order? I’m really not sufficiently enamoured of this pattern to bother, but Tyo may be, in which case I’ll keep it in mind if we end up at Pair #3.

Whew!

Ok, I’m done. And apologies to Claire for not doing a full-camo photo shoot with the vest. We snapped these pictures in about five minutes just before bedtime.

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July 23, 2012 · 10:38 am

Next Size Up

Patrones Niños

Nigh on a year ago, I made Tyo a set of camo capris. The pattern is from this issue of Patrones Niños, which I got from Her Selfishness back in the day. And Tyo was thrilled, with one exception—the rise at the rear was very low, and tended to give her a wedgie.

The pattern of choice (#12)

Unfortunately, while the capris technically still fit—as in, the width of the hips is still sufficient to go around her hips—the low-riding wedginess has reached a point where she doesn’t really find the first pair wearable anymore. So, a while back, I snooped around my local Fabricland and grabbed some lightweight, vaguely camo-esque twill fabric in a shades-of-blue print, to make a replacement pair. I bought two metres, more than enough to make the new pair plus another later when she grew out of it.

Then I went and made fishing vests out of the stuff.

Oops.

Needless to say, Tyo was not completely thrilled. So this past weekend, whilst she was off camping in the mountains with a friend, I pulled out the scant remainder (just over half a metre) and did my best to eke out the next size up on the capris.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we get to the issue of fabric availability, there was the issue of fit. I traced off the size 12 (the first version having been the size 10), but this time I made a few tweaks:

Pattern alterations.

  1. I extended the back crotch to the line of the next size up at the inseam, tapering to nothing along the leg. Hopefully this helps with the wedginess.
  2. I added a generous (2 cm) wedge along the CB curve. I’ve had good luck with these wedges in the past, but I’ve never done one this big. Hopefully this helps with the rear rise issue.
  3. I took not one, not two, but three tucks in the yoke pattern, to help it curve in at the top. I will also be using buttonhole elastic in the waistband, but this will help reduce the excess of fabric above her well-rounded butt.

Due to my vest-making enterprises, it was an extremely tight fit on the remaining fabric. There is selvedge in seam-allowances, and the waistband is in three pieces. Actually, that worked out really well because instead of making buttonholes for my buttonhole elastic, I just left a small gap in the piecing seam for the elastic to thread through. I predict this will be a win. I hope. With any luck. I’ve also added a small amount of piping (piping a random gift courtesy of Claire of Sew, Incidentally, some time ago—Thank you, Claire!), since I find that camo-type prints really make it hard to see the jeans details. Gee, camo making something hard to see!

Not finished.

Of course, I also spent most of my “free time” this past week and weekend madly cleaning house so that the landlady could start showing it, and then avoiding being in the house so as to not mess it up again. So I can’t tell you if my alterations were successful or not, as the new capris are still a goodly ways off being finished. But here’s hoping!

(and thank you, everyone, for the kind words on my last little post. 🙂 )

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August 12, 2010 · 3:11 pm

Not So Awesome

New Jalie Jeans Capris

But they’ll do.

They’re finished except for the studs (which I won’t put in this time until at least one more wash). Nothing special, but considering my spectacular fail on the pattern front, I’m not going to complain as long as they’re wearable.

I’m still having issues with the waistband gaping at the back (probably not helped at all

Rear View

by the pattern goof), so I think I’ll twiddle with the waistband pattern piece a bit. I’m a little scared of how much worse it will get after I wash them. Also I think I should go back to the original width of the waistband pattern piece (I had shaved it down about 2cm) as I think I actually like the wider waistband better. This one’s wider than my last (I used the same pattern piece but 1/4″ seam allowances instead of 1 cm), so it’s a good width, but wider would be nice, too.

One of these days I’ll do something actually interesting with

Belt loop and pocket detail... OMG is that pocket ripping?

the jeans I make. Maybe for the next black pair. I may go back and put a little slit at the seam in the outer side leg just below the knee, too, if I get ambitious. We’ll see. In the meantime—another boring, not entirely quick piece. Now to pray for good weather in September so I can actually use them for my SSS wardrobe.

Front Fly---good installation, less good topstitching.

OMFG, the back pocket’s ripping loose! Did I remember to tie those topstitching strings or did I… just… cut them. Yup, I think I just cut them. *facepalm*

There’s the fly, which is my first actual proper fly installation. The topstitching’s not so good. I think my buttonholes are getting a wee bit better, although still nothing like the amazing tailored ones I see pictures of. Also a cute 10-year-old invaded the picture.

Well, for my first finished project in two weeks, I’m not going to complain. Any more.

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June 4, 2010 · 1:06 pm

Jalie Jeans for me!

Jalie 2908 capris!

Yay!

Pair number one is complete! (minus hemming and rivets. Details, details.)

These are capri-length for summer (since I only have one other pair of capris). I used Becca A’s from Pattern Review’s alterations for making an even lower low-rise (thankfully her daughter and I are close to the same size) which worked perfectly. I also wanted a contoured waistband, so I used the one from the Burdastyle Ellen pants pattern (because it was free). This also worked out well, although it still ended up with a bit of gaping… I think probably from stretching during sewing as it fit perfectly when I was trying it on in advance. I converted it into a single-piece band and narrowed it a bit.

So… aside from my usual sewing blunders (I still haven’t quite figured

Jalie capris---front

out the zipper insertion… I got the zipper facing the right way this time but then sewed the fly shield on the wrong side, and the zipper wound up sitting way back from the centre front, which I think isn’t quite right) I’m pretty darn happy with these as a first pair. My attempt to pre-curve my yoke panel worked fine (there was no gaping at all at that stage of the try on, just after the waistband was attached). I think I have finally understood why the original yoke comes so “straight”… it’s very easy to take it in, but it would be somewhat harder to spread it out evenly if you have a flatter bum… so they drafted it to the “flattest common denominator”… at least, that’s my theory. I tried them on right after I sewed the outer seams, and wore them for a few hours to gauge the fit, after which I took each side in about a 1/4 inch. This improved it nicely, though it wasn’t that bad before; I think most of my issues with the “feel” of the pants have more to do with the fabric (which really isn’t very nice. Next time I will splurge on the $18/m fabric.

Original pocket pattern...

... which didn't work out so well in practice

There were some hiccoughs in the production. I spent quite some time drafting a lovely ankh pattern to topstitch on the pockets… and totally butchered it when I tried to stitch it down. Partly I’m not very good at machine embroidery, partly it was the stretchy fabric (perhaps I should’ve interfaced the pockets)… anyway, that was a bust, so I reverted to some boring straight lines. Oh well. I did make the pockets mini (the same size as my daughter’s) and I like the way they look on my less-than-oversized bottom. The

Not-quite-couture hand finished buttonhole

interfacing helped with the “flabby” feeling of the waistband immensely, but thickened it up enough that my machine balked at doing the buttonhole… so I hand-finished that, which is the first time I’ve ever tried it. It’s definitely not as nice as all those couture hand-finished buttonholes I’ve seen photos of ;). I originally failed to heed Becca A’s advice and cut a size Q yoke (same size as the rest of the pattern) rather than a size R as she suggested, and it was too small (since the lowering of the rise widened the seam… I am brilliant, aren’t I). So I had to re-cut that too.

The topstitching thread, as expected, was a little finicky. I found that most of its tantrums happened at the start of the seam, and could be avoided by holding

side view... gaping at the back doesn't really show.

Back view: boring lines on pockets.

on to the top thread so that the end didn’t get sucked down into the bobbin and do weird things, but it was still a bit of a crapshoot. And I managed to shatter my double-needle (perhaps I’m cursed with those) when I went to do a test stitch with it and had the stitch still set to zig-zag. The needle hit the presser foot. The waistband turned out a little bubbly and bulgy, and the fly is still a little gapy; I’ll have to try a couple more fabrics so I can figure out whether that’s me or just the flabby fabric pulling funny.

(artistic photos by my daughter… sorry about some of the wonky angles 🙂

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