Monday, January 21, 2013

Sewaholic Thurlows 1 & 2

If you haven’t tried patterns from Sewaholic, I certainly recommend that you do!  The fly zipper instructions for the pants is easy as can be to sew and install.  MOF, all the directions are pretty darn good.  If you have decent experience in sewing, you should have very little if any problems.
First, I want to give thanks to Lladybird and Sunnygal for inspiring me w/ their renditions of Thurlows.  They made me want to try these pants.  Thanks, because these pants are great!
Second, let me apologize for the lack of good photos of these pants.  I have a lady I work w/ take the pictures, and I feel strange about lifting my top up to show the waistband, etc.  I would have my husband take the pictures, but we are too busy in the a.m. w/ the farm, so this is the best I can do.
Thirdly, let me apologize again for my weird stance in the photos.  Apparently, I do a lot of standing placing weight on one side or the other.  I didn't realize I did that until I seen these photos.  Also, my jacket looks weird.  Dangit.  
Navy Muslin
The navy pants were my muslin.  I made it out of a very inexpensive navy poly blend fabric.  I cut a size 16 based on my measurements and pattern envelope, but whoa diggity, they were way too big.  I took up quite a bit in the sides and back ~ approximately 2” from the sides and about 4 or so inches from the back side.  I left the welt pockets and belt loops off because I do not like back pockets on my dress pants, and really despise wearing belts.  I also straightened the legs a bit because wide leg pants look strange on me, or at least I think so.  I also did some rework on the waist band to fit my swayback a bit better.  Since this was my muslin, I just zig-zagged the seams.  At the end of the day, the size 16 became a 12.  While these are passable to wear at work, I have a much nicer quality navy suiting material that I want make into Thurlows at a later date. 
For my second pair of Thurlows, I cut a size 14 but sewed using ¼” French seams, so the finished garment is a size 11/12.  I straightened the legs some more, and worked on fitting the waistband to my body again.  I still have a bit of work to do on that to make it just right because there is still a bit of a gap that I want gone.   I used medium weight stretch cotton in a mini black/white houndstooth  which I love. 

I love the shoes I am wearing in this photo!  I really do!

I love the length of the pants.  The pattern pieces are long enough that you can adjust the hem to fit your height w/o adjusting the pattern.  I am fairly tall, so that makes me all smiley inside.  I love pants that are a bit longer than normal because nothing ticks me off more than sitting at my desk, and having my pants pull up to mid-calf LOL  Seriously, that just irks me. 
Not counting my wearable muslin, I want to make at least 6 more pairs of Thurlows for work.  The next pair will be a khaki color cotton/poly.  I hope I will completely work out the waistband issue with this next pair.   I am pretty confident that I will.   I am working toward slowly weeding out all my ill-fitting RTW pants by the end of this year.  Hoorah for that.
Take care and God Bless.

4 comments:

  1. You must be thrilled to have a pants pattern that works. They're great.

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  2. i really like sewaholic patterns. your pants look wonderful! i love finding a good TNT pants pattern so you don't have to keep making modifications.

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  3. Your trousers look terrific!
    What does MOF mean?

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    Replies
    1. MOF means "matter of fact". I was too lazy to write it out :)

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