The Good News … I’m feeling better, even though my nose doesn’t. I felt good enough to spend most of this weekend sewing. Yippee! You might remember, I left off with the slash pockets being completed on my third pair of pants (out of the four I want to make for myself). Gotta love that RTW Challenge and make ’em myself!
I have been using a couple of Craftsy courses: “Pant Fitting Techniques” by Sandra Betzina and “One pattern, Many Looks: Pants” by Kathy Ruddy; and Vogue pattern V2948. So far, I have made a muslin, a brown pair and a black pair. Now this blue pair, well, I just love the fabric. It’s called Blue Horizon Suiting, 100% polyester, with no stretch. It feels so much like an expensive suit pant fabric! And the colour is the perfect blue!
After finishing my brown pair, I have decided though to make the waistband 1/2 ” narrower. I don’t have a long waist so the tall waistband on my brown pair gets folded over after a day’s wearing.
Good news! It was easy to chop 1/2″ off the top of the waistband pieces. I also took the waistband in 1/4 ” on the side seams, front and back. It would feel better to have a tighter waistband.
I also decided to iron my waistband seam open. With my brown pair I folded all the seam allowances up and hid them under my waistband facing. It makes the insides look nice but it makes the fabric layers really, really thick when I am sewing on my invisible zipper.
Another change. After sewing on one side of my invisible zipper with my Singer zipper foot (it fits just fine on my Janome), I decided to go over it again with my “Universal” invisible zipper foot to see if I could “get in closer”.
You might have seen it before, but here is my process for inserting an invisible zipper. (Click on the first photo to start the slideshow.)
Now to try it on … Front view, Not bad. Strangely enough, these feel a little baggier than my brown pair!
Back view. Bad News! A bit off really! I don’t know where all those baggy wrinkles came from, especially since this was made with the same pattern as my brown pair? Perhaps, the brown knit fabric hung better, without those baggy wrinkles appearing, than this blue suiting fabric?
Good news! An easy fix! Walk around holding the sides of my pants tighter! or how about just sew the side seams in perhaps?
Good news! Side seams sewn in 1/2 “. Looks better! An adjustment I will have to make a note of for my next pair.
Bad News! I sewed the invisible zipper “so close” that when I zipped it up, the fabric was in the way and the invisible zipper didn’t go up easily. And Even Worse News! I couldn’t get it down again! I couldn’t get out of the pants without yanking the zipper pull off! I guess you are supposed to sew close, but not THAT close!
I think I am going to take a break before I move on to my fourth, and last, pair of pants, a black pair. I suddenly have to replace a zipper.
I also have a real surprise for you next week. I have found two of the “Oldest UFO’s” in the world. And I dare you to prove me wrong!
So tell me, have you tried tackling invisible zippers? Do you use a proper invisible zipper foot? Or do you just “wing it” with some other kind of foot?
Happy Sewing!
Great pants! I use a piping foot, which I think is shaped very similar, if not the same, as an invisible zipper foot. My zipper insertions have definitely improved since I bought it a few months ago.
I’ll have to compare the two. They seem to have a similar purpose!
What a difference that 1/2″ makes: these look great, and I love the color! (And okay, I admit that I giggled at the thought of you being trapped in your new pants and having to break your way out of them!) And if there is one way to shut down my sewing mojo, it’s repairs and alterations–good luck to you with getting a new zip in this blue pair. O_o
I have only ever put a zipper in by machine one time–on a muslin, and on a friend’s machine, if you can believe that!–and while I was successful, I missed the control of doing it by hand. The muslin in question was for a silk maxi dress, and I haven’t decided whether to try a machine insertion on the real deal or to just do it by hand; 22″ of zipper by hand doesn’t sound like much fun, so that may be the motivator I need to figure out my machine’s zipper foot!
Let’s just say it was a fun weekend! I have only hand sewn a zipper once. The sewing was a little wobbly, but it went in well and held tight. I was surprised! I can’t imagine hand sewing a 22 inch zipper!
I use an invisible zipper foot and it works beautifully. I broke my RTW fast to buy trousers! (Back on a modified fast) And if course they were no more successful than when I tried to buy them before I started sewing. I have the same pattern and the Craftsy class it came with and might have another go – I guess if you’ve made so many it must be worth doing. I don’t have the one pants many looks class. Is it worth it?
The one pattern many looks class is not for fitting but rather for what I did after the fitting. I liked the Betzina fitting class and her pattern. The Ruddy class showed you how to how to take one pants pattern (I used Betzina’s after I fitted it) and add slash pockets to one pair, perhaps welt pockets to another, etc. So it depends on what you want to learn. I learned something from both.
I’ve always been scared of zippers for this very reason! 🙂 Have you tried Janome’s Invisible (“Concealed”) zipper foot? I wonder if that would help?
I thought I was doing so well with my Singer zipper foot (on my Janome). until I got too close! I think it’s time for me to buy a proper invisible zipper foot for my Janome. Thanks for the suggestion!
Haha you definitely should fix them by walking round holding the side seams!! Thanks for the giggle!
You’re welcome! This was definitely a sewing project I enjoyed doing! (I hope everyone enjoyed it!). Thanks for reading and commenting!
Glad to hear you’re on the mend! I have a Janome invisible foot and I’ve sewn about 5 or 6 invisible zips and they’ve all turned out perfectly! I still need to refer to a tutorial when inserting them though. I seem to have some sort of spacial awareness problem where I just cannot work it out. I tried without it once and it went horribly wrong. The zip inserted OK it was just upside down and back to front – that was the only one I’ve unpicked!
Thanks! I have to pin my invisible zipper on how it supposed to look when finished, so that I can pin it on correctly to sew! Glad to know the Janome foot is so well loved. I have to get my manual for the settings for my blind hem foot, after all these years! My brain can only hold so much, I guess!
He he! Glad it’s not just me!