Recreate Your Cherished Chambray Trousers Easily

Do you get emotionally attached to your clothing and not just the ones you’ve made? As I’ve mentioned here before, I haven’t really bought much in the way of ready-to-wear since about 2016. However, I do still wear shop-bought clothing as I still have several items in my wardrobe that I love, Either because they fit me well, they still look good or because they have nice associations.

Inevitably, some of those well-worn and well-loved clothes will eventually meet their demise. In order to rescue one such piece, I’m going into cloning mode to recreate a pair of chambray trousers that I have worn close to destruction.

I’ve been meaning to either repair and/or copy these trousers for a while, I even have the fabric in my stash even though I created another obstacle in that I had two different shades of chambray and couldn’t choose between them. Recently, in another attempt at clearing out my clutter, these trousers surfaced again and I decided that I needed to either do the job or get rid of them. Finally, I took the plunge to get this done.

One of the reasons I’ve hung onto these trousers is that they have some beautiful details that I really liked. The top stitching and the flap detail on the back pockets in particular, as well as the drawstring waist. This is a fun design incorporating binding and washers that gave it a really interesting look which I’ll be trying to recreate.

I chose the rubbing-off method for copying these trousers. I favour this method because it’s non-destructive and part of me thinks I might try to repair the disintegrated inner thighs of these originals so they can still be enjoyed. so I don’t want to cut them into pieces to make a new pattern. Another part of me just enjoys the elegance of the method. Rubbing off involves laying your garment as flat as possible usually pinning into place and carefully tracing the pieces to make a copy of your original.

There are some downsides to using the rubbing-off method because a garment is a three-dimensional model created from two-dimensional pieces. Without dismantling a garment, it is sometimes difficult to make the piece lay how it was in its 2D form. In addition, during wear, your body distorts the garment, so it’s not always possible to do an exact copy of the original pieces as they’ll no longer be the same shape as they started out.

Doing this method has increased my understanding of the construction of the garments and getting little tips on finishing is really useful, for example, how the edges are finished – some with the overlocker, some with binding and some by turning in then stitching in the ditch. these are all things that I’ve learned from examining items of clothing.

When I started the construction of the trousers fronts, I realised I’d made an error. The front pocket is a patch pocket top stitched onto the trouser front, but I’d read it as a jeans-style pocket with an inserted pocket bag. I think this is another one of those perils of putting down a project for a long time. I should have inspected the original garment again thoroughly before I started cutting, but I proceeded with the jeans style because I’m familiar with that method of construction. It may mean the item comes out slightly different from the way I intended, but never mind, I have some lovely fabric for my pocket bags.

You know all those umpteen stitches on your sewing machine that you never use? Well, I discovered a new stitch that is perfect for this project. Most people probably know this already but the triple stitch makes a great substitute for using top stitch thread and also helps eliminate that guesswork about how much you need. If you just use ordinary thread it saves a lot of time and expense and somehow I found it easier to control the machine using that thread than trying to manoeuvre top stitching thread around my designs. Always learning!

My original pants have three rows of top stitching and to be honest I could not face that, so one it is. I used my overlocker to add some interesting fringing to the back pockets and I’m really pleased with that. sewing it up was quite easy after that.

Overall, I’m very pleased with these. A lot of those details didn’t make the cut; for example the hardware – I attached poppers which fell off after first wear and I didn’t have the right eyelets, so I skipped them and also the binding as I couldn’t find just the right type, so the drawstring was dropped too. However, I think these trousers still look great. I’ve worn these a lot since I made them as they are perfect for warm weather but you can also wear long socks when it’s cooler. I also love the fit, so declare this a WIN!

Have you tried cloning your wardrobe?

Thanks for dropping by,