Spring-ish Lander Pants

Hi team, happy spring/autumn! Not that it feels like spring in Wellington at the moment, my weather app tells me it feel like 4 degrees outside currently, and I believe it…though we have had some absolutely beautiful spring-like days recently, so I’m not going to complain. I’m definitely looking forward to some consistently warm weather though! I’ve been planning out some sewing to get me through this transitional period, and top of my list was some new trousers. I love my Ginger Jeans and my Safran Jeans, but by the end of winter I am genuinely sick of seeing them. I had plans to make the Closet Case Pietra Pants, but I needed to prewash the fabric, and it took a couple of days to get dry this week as it’s been so cold (the lesson here is to prewash and dry your fabric as soon as you get it, not just before you want to use it…). As it was hanging in the laundry, I pulled out some already pre-washed denim and decided to make the 1970’s inspired Lander jeans that I’d been thinking about all winter.

I’m not sure where this denim came from, it’s been sitting in my stash for years! I had about 3.5m of it, so I suspect it may have been from one of The Fabric Warehouse’s sales. Its a nice weight, on the heavy side of medium, and I love the mid-indigo blue. It has a little bit of stretch, so I suspect it was bought for another pair of Ginger Jeans! I have plenty left over, so that may still happen. I think it’ll age nicely, it feels like it should soften up and wear in like the other denims I’ve bought from TFW. All of the fabric and hardwear for these came from my stash, which is awesome. I despair at the amount of stuff I’ve accumulated over the years sometimes, but other times I love that I generally have everything i need for a project on hand!

Obviously I’ve made a few changes to the Lander pattern, I’ve got rid of the exposed button fly and swapped the patch pockets for internal pockets with a pocket stay. I love the look of the exposed button fly, but I hated the way it pulled on my first pair of linen Landers. It was also a pain to get in and out of! I think a zip fly is more practical, and also sits nice and flat which I prefer. I didn’t buy the zip fly expansion pack, I just used the fly pieces from the pattern and subbed in the instructions from a fly zip tutorial and it’s turned out great. The pockets were a bit more of a fiddle to hack, I copied the general shape of the pocket pieces from the Ginger jeans to get the pocket stay (the Curvy Sewing Collective have a tutorial on how to do it here!), and then cut the shape of the pocket opening from the front piece. I also added a piece of denim to the top of the pocket piece rather than having the whole piece cut from denim to minimise the bulk. Both pieces of the pocket bag are made from a scrap of rigid cotton chambray, its lovely and soft across my tummy!

I really love these pockets, the pocket stay makes it feel like there isn’t too much stress on the zip (these are drafted to fit  pretty tight across the hips!), and it also means that the pockets are big enough to fit my phone and my hands in at the same time! The holy grail of pockets, in my opinion. The back pockets on the Landers are also huge, giving me so many options for places to stash things. They’re basically like the Mary Poppins carpet bag of trousers! I slipped another one of my favourite Kylie and the Machine labels into the topstitching of one of the pockets, I love it…

It’s funny, until I saw pictures of my in these I thought they were so much wider than they actually are! I think I must be so used to skinny jeans that anything else feels very breezy. I think these will be a great option to get me through until the warm weather arrives, the slightly cropped length (I took an inch off the full length version and then turned the hem up 3 inches) means I won’t feel silly wearing socks with them but can also wear them without if its not too cold!

I’ll also briefly talk about my top, I’ve finally climbed aboard the Mandy Boat Tee train! Actually this is my second attempt at this pattern, I tried it a few years ago when it was a single size, and it was hugely too big for me. When Tessuti re-released it with 4 size options I thought I should try it again! This is the size 2, with a few inches off the bottom so that I could fit it onto an odd length of jersey knit from the stash. I love this yarn dyed stripe, its lovely and drapey and soft, and I think it works well with this pattern! I’m glad I gave it another go, it was a really quick sew, even with stripe matching. And it’s a free pattern! I am glad I remembered to put a ‘This is the Back’ label into the back neckline before cover stitching it down, otherwise I’d be getting it wrong constantly…

Well there we go, the first of my spring sewing! Hopefully I’ll get those Pietra Pants sewn up soon…

 

 

Traditional Summer Sewing

The first few weeks of 2019 have swept me along in a flurry of wedding related business, but all of that is finished now, and I’ve got some space to think of other things! Our wedding on the 10th was perfect. It threatened to rain on us, but managed to hold off, and we were able to have the ceremony outside on the lawn overlooking the farm, which I was very glad about! The venue we picked has a beautiful outlook, it would have been a bummer not to get to see it. I managed to get my wedding sewing finished in plenty of time, and I was really happy with how everything turned out, and the whole day was just really happy and relaxed and full of our favourite people. I’ll do a post about my wedding sewing when we get some photos back!

But first, I have a traditional first-post-of-the-year post, new shorts and a tee shirt! I’ve been meaning to make a pair of Lander Shorts since I made my linen Lander Pants, and I finally dug out the scraps of cotton drill left over from my black Ginger Jeans and just managed squeezed the pieces on. They went together really easily, I used the whole 1” seam allowance down the side seams as this fabric has 2% stretch, and they’re very comfortable!

I swapped out the button fly for a standard zip fly, as I really dislike the pulling I get at the buttons on my linen pair and I was concerned that the drag lines would be even more apparent in a stretch fabric! I swapped in the instructions from the Grainline sewalong for the Maritime Shorts, and it worked really well. I had intended to play with the pockets too, I thought maybe I would flip the patch pockets on the front to the inside and turn them into standard slash pockets, but I decided not to in the end. I think the pocket bags would have shown through really obviously in this fabric, and with the black topstitching I used the patch pockets blend in so well that I’m glad I didn’t fluff around with them! Unfortunately the fabric is an absolute cat-fur magnet, I’ve basically given up trying to de-fluff both these shorts and my jeans…

I made the shorts up between Christmas and New Year, and was wearing them a lot with my cropped paprika linen tee. I had the Maya Tee pattern from Marilla Walker on my #2019make9 list, so after New Year I thought I should make a cropped version to give the harvest tee a break! I used more leftover fabric from my stash, this time some super soft double gauze left over from my Myosotis dress. I didn’t have quite as much fabric left as I remembered, so I ended up cropping it by about 2” from the ‘cropped’ tee line of the pattern. On my short torso the ‘cropped’ length would be mid hip, so it all worked out pretty well!

This is the basic tee version of the Maya pattern, with the plain front and straight hem, no buttons or pockets or anything flash. I top stitched the facings around the neck and sleeves, and remembered to pop a label in the back neckline so I can tell the front from the back! Aside from cropping the length, I also took an inch or so out of the side seams at the hem, tapering up to nothing at the bust. It was just a bit too bell shaped in this double gauze, which has quite a lot of body, and that adjustment helped to tame that fullness a bit! It’s lovely and breezy as it is now though. I really love the ikat-style print on this fabric, so I’m glad to have it as a slightly more wearable garment than my full and floaty dress! I’m definitely planning another one or two of these, and I’d love to try the cuff variation I’ve seen people make on instagram too…

I’m pretty chuffed that my first two garments posted this year are both made from leftover fabric, and that I’ve already ticked off one of my Make9! I’ve set myself a challenge to not buy any fabric between the first of January and Easter this year, so expect to see more sewing up of remnants and stash fabric in the next few months…

Landers in Linen

Oh look, more linen! It really has been the star of my sewing this summer, and I’m not done with it yet… I’m sure you probably recognise the pattern I used for these trousers, they’re the True Bias Lander Pants and they’ve been everywhere since they were released last year! I was immediately drawn to the shape of the cropped version, and since I’ve had such good wear out of my Flint Trousers I was keen to give the Landers a go.

I used a length of cotton/linen twill that has been in my stash for a few years, I bought it from a designer ends sale for cheap. I really liked the pale grey colour, and the texture of the twill, and the cotton/linen fibre blend is really nice to wear in the heat. Its a pretty soft fabric though, and is possibly a bit lightweight for these trousers. I’m not too happy with how the linen pulls out of shape, especially around the button fly. I’ve combated the worst of the pulling (just below the waistband) by sewing a hook and eye to the fly shield, and that’s solved the worst of it, but I think if I make them in a lightweight fabric again I’ll use a more sturdy interfacing, and I’ll interface the front of the trousers where the buttonholes are sewn as well as the fly shield! Next time I’ll have a fiddle with the crotch curve in the front pattern piece too, I could do with a little bit more room there and hopefully that’ll help with the pulling around the button fly too.

I do love the details on this pattern, between the big patch pockets front and back and the exposed button fly they definitely don’t look like anything else in my wardrobe! They were really fun to sew up, and the button fly meant that they were a pretty quick project too. They were pretty snug through the hip and around my bum when I basted the side seams together, but I let them out to a 5/8” seam allowance (rather than the 1” allowance that the pattern gives to allow for adjustments) around the hip, which helped. To be honest, I think I could have left them at the original seam allowance, as the cotton/linen blend relaxes quite a bit with wear, but hopefully they won’t get too baggy around the bum…

When I finished these, I really wasn’t sure about them. I think it was mainly the colour, I never wear such pale colours on my bottom half! I was also a bit stuck with how to wear them, but after paring them with the range of cropped tops I’ve sewn this summer I’m feeling better about them. I thought I’d be wearing them with all of my striped tee shirts, but I didn’t think about the fact that most of my black and white stripes look like plain grey tee shirts from a distance, and it was all a bit monochromatic for me! I clearly need some tee shirts in more definite colours. I’m really keen to make another pair in some non-stretch denim I have in my stash, which I think I’ll find much easier to wear. I’m looking forward to going full 1970’s with them!

Speaking of cropped tops, this is my latest one! I was thinking of just making another cropped Willow Tank with this lush paprika milled linen from The Fabric Store, but I decided to branch out after I saw Emma from Emma’s Atelier make the free Harvest Top pattern from Peppermint Magazine. I made a few changes to the pattern, but I’m really happy with how it’s turned out! I didn’t add on the bottom panel to the tee to make it cropped, and then I used a 1 1/4” hem on it. I also shortened the armscye and sleeve cuffs by 2”, when I sewed them up as drafted I could see my entire bra through the armhole when I lifted up my arms. Not quite the look I was going for! I used the bamboo flower buttons from Arrow Mountain down the back, which I love. They’re just sewn through both layers of the placket, there’s enough room in the top and neckline for me to just pull it over my head. The buttons were initially on a chambray Southport Dress which I made to take to the UK last year, but I must have graded the seams around the bias facings too harshly and it’s started to come apart in the wash. I didn’t love it enough to try mending it, so I was happy to rescue the buttons for this! I’m considering cutting the bodice off the dress and just keeping the skirt, otherwise I’ll just recycle the fabric into a tank top or something little. I think the Harvest tee is a good wee pattern, it took less than 1m of fabric to make this cropped version, and I can think of a few other versions I could make with various modifications. No button back, shaped cuffs (get rid of those wings!), colour blocking, changing the neckline…