Bottoms – Page 2 – Stitch Sessions

September 15, 2020January 26, 2023

Sewing Trousers with New Look 6718

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and concrete wall. They are wearing a black button-up shirt and highwaisted grey wool trousers. They have one hand on their hip.

One thing I love about sewing, among the plethora of things I love, is that it is a constant process of learning new skills and refining old ones. New materials pose all kinds of challenges, from learning to handle slippery fabrics, to testing thread tension, stitches – and learning to go back and forth between machines. Although New Look 6718 is hardly my first trousers pattern, it feels as though this was the beginning of quite a lot of adventures in learning and developing new techniques and revealing weaknesses in my current sewing practices. For one thing I worked on a range of tasks between the first of this make, and the second, and I feel I came so far between them that they were an excellent snapshot of my skills at each point in time.

May 17, 2020January 26, 2023

Butterick 9779, Shorts and Pattern Hacking

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and concrete wall. They have their fists raised and one leg kicked back - mid dance-move. They are wearing a white and brown striped shirt and highwaisted, green corduroy shorts.

If someone had tried to tell me this time last year that I would not only be making shorts that fit perfectly, and from a vintage pattern; but that I would also be pattern hacking to make pants and overalls! Well, I don’t think I would have believed them. But despite that I have now completed some of my most successful makes to date, and it all begins with my purchase of the circa 1960s pattern, Butterick 9779. It was a somewhat risky purchase for me, being a little bit pricer and coming from an overseas seller – my last experience of which had been truly terrible. However, I worried over nothing! The seller was lovely, the pattern arrived in a brilliant condition – albeit with a slightly wonky waistband from people accidentally trimming bits off. Over the course of one virtual craft evening with a friend I very gently ironed out the pattern pieces for the medium size and got to tracing and copying the markings into more modern versions.

January 31, 2020January 25, 2023

Simplicity 8457 – Pants, pants, pants!

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and a grey concrete wall. They are stepping towards the camera on an angle, with one hand in their pocket. They are wearing highwaisted black pants, a black shirt and an open grey waistcoat.

Continuing the trend of sewing bottoms from my last post, I thought it would be good to share my thoughts about Simplicity 8457. This pattern was quite a step up for me, involving an all new technique in terms of inserting an invisible zipper. And it was also my first time dealing with trousers with a pleated front. My love of wide-leg, high-waisted trousers had well and truly set in by this stage, as had my desire to find pairs that fit. Naturally I turned to another one of my Spotlight Specials patterns to make this happen and stumbled over a series of patterns called Amazing Fit. I was intrigued by the notion that it had “curvy” pattern options, which seemed specifically designed for people with larger hips and thighs than waists.

January 30, 2020January 25, 2023

Butterick B6178 – Culottes!

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and a grey concrete wall. They are wearing an off the shoulder pink and white polkadot top, and navy blue culottes. They have their hands in their pockets and one leg raised.

Pants, culottes and shorts! I feel that bottoms are – for many people, the biggest challenge when it comes to sewing. This is because there are a lot of factors that go into the fit of bottoms, and or those who don’t have a one size figure or who have yet to find a pattern company with a block that matches their measurements – or who don’t have a block of their own (like me), it means making adjustments. Perhaps that’s grading out or in at the hips, lengthening the crotch or shortening the crotch, adding in a sway back adjustment, a full stomach adjustment, lengthening the legs, shortening the legs, adding a longer zip, adding a second zip – the list goes on. I am still not at all confident when it comes to sewing pants, and I had some disastrous experiences. Not at all realising the various fit issues my figure presented, or even what style of bottoms best suited me. But among the various attempts I made, Butterick B6178 stands out as a great success for the time.