Pattern Frustrations, Oh, My!

I've decided that my wardrobe really needs more pants and I have made several pair over the summer from my Sure Fit sloper. They give a great fit which I tweaked on the last pair as the sloper was made pre weight lost which I kept off. I have found I just needed a small tweak in the hip width and a definite raising of the rise all around, the sad loss of my round booty. Sigh,,,,,,,Anyhoo, winter is coming and I want to find a great trouser pattern, a classic with slanted pockets, deep pleats and an increase in volume. I love this look and owned pair of Calvin Klein trousers that I paid ever so dearly for and wore until they were no longer fit for public wear. I may barking up the wrong hill on Memory Lane but I thought I'd give it a try with some cheap chino twill I have hanging around. Rather than a whole new trouser pattern from my SF sloper, which would involve new tissue,drawing, cutting, etc. I decided to look into my resources for a trouser pattern and then use the sloper to refine the fit. After measuring pleat and leg widths on various patterns I decided View C of McCalls 5239 was just right. You can see this is a Palmer Pletch pattern for "the perfect fit".The measurements of size ten were very close to mine so that's what I will cut. I haven't flat pattern measured yet but will before cutting any fabric. I may go down a size if need be.

Like all good sewists I read through the pattern instructions first and then read through it again. . I cut out the pieces for a size 10 and while cutting looked closely at the tissues. I also read the reviews in Pattern Review on this pattern. It had rave reviews  except for one, single soul who saw and felt what I saw and felt. In a nutshell, not good. I have made a ton of pleated patterns over the years. This pattern,  sold in 2009 and very verbose in the instruction, was not good in the tissue and in the instructions. I know that when making a pleated garment that on the pattern tissue it is shown usually with a line and dots that are brought over and matched to another line and another dot or two. Arrows tell you in which direction  to bring your fold and match. There are also usually numbers on the lines for what sizes to match with what lines for the same size.  This is a multi size pattern with 4 sizes. Please tell me what you see here above. There are 4 sizes here and I have cut size ten. Are these pleat folds clear to you? Are they sewn twice like a double topstitch?  At this point I don't care because I will just do my own thing. I just feel for any newbie that got stuck on this and threw it in the trash. It is unclear on the pattern what to line up with what to correctly place the pleats and also there is no reference to any double stitching or topstitching so that is not the answer.  The back pant tissue has two darts but shows 4 because of the 4 sizes it covers. No where does it show which size gets which dart. The sizes here are from 8-14. 

Then there was the waistband. Those instructions start with telling you that you will have the most, IN BOLD PRINT,  wonderful waistband installation ever. What proceeded was this, I don't know, installation like I've never seen, that to me, added bulk to the waistband , never mind confusion. Again, a newbie would have played Toss the Tissue. You had to have a certain type of waistband interfacing,  one made of "monofilament nylon waistband interfacing" cut  one  inch wide.  That is stitched to the 5/8ths inch wide waistband SA. This interfacing that is added to the waistband SA is now stitched to the pant waist SA through the interfacing. It is all very weird and unnecessary, IMO. This is all then folded up, no under-stitching, pressing, trimming anywhere. Then  two little pieces of interfacing are cut and folded over the ends of the waistband and pressed in place to sort of glue things together. Gahhhhhhh......

I can't even go on. Just no, I'm sorry. I saw no reason for those interfacing wrap flaps. I just could not see any reason for the additional steps and bulk.  Long time followers know I am crazy about couturier Roberta Carr and her teachings, number one of which is reduce bulk whenever possible. Roberta would take a drag off her well known  cigarette and roll over in her grave over this method. The illustrations of it all were confusing as well. Do you really want me to go on about the zipper instructions??? It's not good and I will leave it at that. 

I've put in a lot of fly zips in my time, a fair amount with various couture methods. The zipper illustration for view C was so small and had confusing folds and parts which bore no resemblance to anything I was familiar with.  I went through my box of couture and designer patterns to find a similar design and compare.  From the crotch up these Issey Miyake shorts were the same other than the turn of the pleats. The construction was so so much simpler, a classic fly installation. 

The same goes for these Anne Klein trousers. Notice the bottom says Easy/Facile. Right on top it says Classification: Couture. This pattern has a classic fly front zip on those trousers that anyone who has done a fly could put in. The instructions are clear, simple and doable. So is the waistband.  They are not complicated at all like the Palmer Pletch pattern. 

Why am I so upset at this old pattern? Because if offers something we all want, Great Pant Fit, and then makes it ridiculously hard to make the garment when the actual making of pants is so very easy. Once a person has a pants pattern that fits, they have found the Holy Grail and can whip out a pair of pants in no time flat. Difficult patterns turn off beginners. Bigtime. This is so unnecessary. 

I will cut out these trousers, use my sloper to fit them and sew them like all the pants I make. I'll  probably use Sandra Betzina's fly front zip techniqu, Hong Kong the seam edges and do a waist stay as I personally love those, all things out there on the web and that are not hard to do at all. I will not follow the Palmer Pletch directions in this silly pattern. There is just not enough time in my life. 

The Good News

The wonderful news from my Pattern Corner is that there are Pattern Angels out there. You may know them. They have helped me more than once over the years and I treasure and thank them from the bottom of my heart. Recently a pattern was in Threads magazine that seemed to have touched some sort of hippy, baby boomer nerve ending in my sewing soul. View A here just spoke to me. Maybe it was the lure of the tucks and their heirloom sewing vibe. I don't know. I had recently purchased a crazy Telio rayon challis and when View A showed up in my Threads. I had to find it. No luck on Etsy, Ebay and anything Google. Then a Sewing Angel, Ada G, from the lovely island of Puerto Rico said she owned this for years, never made it and never would and would gladly pass it on. In honor of Ada G. I praise all you sewing angels and the sewing community who is constantly reaching out. Thank you, Ada, for your kindness. Let the sewing community help each other along as we witness the current horrible activity of Mother Nature. Let's remember to reach out to those who have lost so much even in a small way. When you have lost everything a pack of needles is a huge deal. There is much on Face Book to send you in the right direction for giving and helping out fellow sewists who have lost everything. Just check out some of the bigger sewing groups.  I pray you are all, everywhere, safe, and as protected from fires, hurricanes and the realities of our Covid life as much as you can be. I hope you can all get back to sewing in the very near future. Bless you all...............Bunny