Fifth wardrobe piece and Salsa pants for my husband

Salsa pants for my husband - a combination of the Classic Men's Jeans from e-sewingpatterns.com (see the jeans I made from this pattern in this post) and the Grey pants pattern from m-sewing.com (see the pants I made from this pattern in this post). I used this last pattern for the leg, a wider leg is very good for dancing Salsa and as the fabric is drapey, it worked great.





I underlined the fronts, going well below the knee, to minimize wrinkling at crotch and knee level.



I've used the RTW finishing detailed in this post, including the pre-made waist band (I found a nice black one, with no Christian Dior logo :))



And I've used again Debbie Cook's tutorial for the double welt pocket and am very pleased with the result.



Read my PR review here.

And now, my fourth wardrobe piece... one that I totally love, I think this is my favorite skirt pattern ever! Vogue 8246.





Back of the skirt lying flat



Front of the skirt lying flat




The fabric is a black washed stretch denim. However, I cut with the stretch on the length of the pattern pieces, not the width. I thought I might have to grade down and didn't want the additional stretch to make the job tougher.

I did a petite alteration, took in the side seams by 1 cm (3/8") each and shortened the skirt, because I wanted it to hit just below the knee. I also reduced the hem allowance from 3.2 cm (1 1/4") to 1.3 cm (1/2"). The back hem is rounded and it is so much easier to get a neat hem with a narrower hem allowance.

Other changes that I made are due to not having enough fabric. I had 1 m of fabric (for a straight skirt I normally need 50-60 cm) and it wasn't enough. Therefore I had to make a center seam to the center front piece instead of cutting it on the fold. In order to "camouflage" this seam, I zigzagged over all the seams (5 mm length 2 mm width) with black topstitching thread. I like very much the final result: all those vertical seams, topstitched in black give a lot of vertical lines that lengthen my petite frame. I thought about topstitching with a straight stitch (like in jeans) but my seam allowances are butterflied and a straight topstitch works better with seam allowances together.

See the pleat underlays below.







The other change due to lack of fabric is that I cut the pleat underlays from black cotton sateen.

To cleanly finish the facing and join it to the invisible zipper, I've used a great tutorial written by Jinjer Markley and posted on Kathleen's Fasanella's website, Fashion Incubator. Part 1 and Part 2 of the tutorial for inserting an invisible zipper, making and using a pressing jig and sewing the the zipper to the facing in an RTW way. I bound the facing with some polkadotted bias. The rest of the seam allowances are serged.



This is a great pattern, easy to sew (especially since there's no lining, it was a breeze after all the underlining and seam binding I've done lately). I want to sew it again, I will try it in some suiting. I'm also thinking about using this pattern without the underlays, maybe keeping the center one for walking ease and eliminating the rest but keeping the contouring seams.

So one or two skirts from this pattern will follow :)

Read my PR review here