Smart Pants

Readers,

I recently reached a sewing milestone: pants I like in every way. The impossible dream has come true!

I like the fabric–Nevada linen, from Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics, and the color, Nectarine.  It’s a warm, medium-deep coral-terra cotta color that’s summery but wouldn’t look out of place in the warm days of early fall.

McCall’s 6901 was the starting point, but I dispatched with the waistband and did a waist facing. I like to face the facing for a clean finish.

I also skipped the fly front zipper application, which I’ve never been able to do very well, and did an invisible zipper back closure.

When I finished these pants I thought what a debt of gratitude I owed many types of people:

• patternmakers, fitting experts, style consultants,
•  sewing construction experts, fabric and notions suppliers,

•  video and still photographers, editors, and instruction writers,
•  bloggers and fellow sewers in discussion forums,
•  sewing teachers.

I also thought about the fantastic resources I was able to tap into:

• Many books, including Pants for Real People by Pati Palmer and Marta Alto and Sewing Pants That Fit in the Singer Sewing Reference Library
• Sarah Veblen’s online class “Fun with Fitting Pants” on PatternReview.com. A handout for this class, “A Quick Reference Guide to the Ten Most Common Fitting Problems for Pants” gets special commendation.

• Imogen Lamport’s blog Inside Out Style and her 7 Steps to Style program for advice on figure type, coloring, and most flattering lines
• Threads magazine articles, and on the Threads website Kenneth King’s video demonstrating installing an invisible zipper without tears
• In-person technical help (and morale support!) from my sewing teachers Edith Gazzuolo in Minneapolis and Gail Kelley of Sewing Hive here in Columbus.

By now I risk sounding like an Academy Award-winner who has to be dragged offstage for taking up too much time thanking everybody, but you see my point.

In my world of getting things sewn, these are my essential services, and I’d be lost without them!

Thanks to Cynthia DeGrand for these wonderful photos.