From Inspiration to Creation: Sewing My Own Barrel Legged Pants

Well…. Having a little break turned into “Where the hell have you been?” I’ve been away so long that my WordPress subscription lapsed and when I re-joined, my theme was discontinued. so the appearance of my blog has changed. It’s really hard to get back on the horse sometimes, but I’ve got some makes to share.

Like everybody else, I like trawling the internet to find images of clothes that I would love to make and finding patterns to match. I often stalked the hashtags of favourite patterns but lately, I’ve been looking at my favourite stores more to see if I could clone some of those Out of Reach designer items that I always fall in love with.

The image depicts a pair of barrel-legged trousers with a unique pocket detail. After seeing many people wearing similar “Bob pants” or “Arthur pants,” I was hesitant to try them. However, I came across this image and found myself interested in the pants. I think I could actually pull them off.

Of course, my ego and my budget told me I didn’t want to buy a pattern. I’ve got dozens of trouser patterns and I thought I must have something in the stash that I could adapt into something resembling this. And then of course I remembered my pattern lab trouser block so that was my starting point for these trousers

I made the legs fuller by bowing both the inseam and outseam to give them a pronounced curve and then I set about designing the front pocket for the trousers. The front has a section removed to allow for the pocket that forms a kind of yoke across the front I needed to make a pocket back and pocket lining. In hindsight, I later decided that this could have been a patch pocket.

It looks like an internal waistband, something I don’t often use. I normally like a wide, firm waistband. However, I decided to try to recreate it as I really like the simple finish. I decided to make and fit the trousers and work the waistband out at the end. Ultimately I abandoned the internal band and used a curved waistband instead.

The fabric used for the inspiration pants was a hemp-cotton blend and I set out to find something similar. The idea of trying natural fibres appealed to me. I use synthetics regularly, it suits my budget but I was curious about using hemp so I went for it.

In the end, this didn’t work out, I found two sources for hemp cotton blend in the proportions recommended, but neither proved to be suitable. The first was too lightweight, almost sheer and I just didn’t like the appearance of the second. It looked like a calico and just not the finish I imagined for my trousers. I used a stretch gaberdine twill from my Minerva source.

My final thoughts: I like how they turned out well enough, but there are definitely things I would change if I made them again. Guessing the proportions from a photograph proved not entirely successful and I think I want a higher waist and to change the length. I think I’d prefer them cropped. I also think I need a fabric with more weight to hang the way I envisioned. However, overall, I’ve been wearing them so think these are a success.

Are you drafting your own patterns? How’s it going?

Thanks for dropping by,