SNYPH part four: Holly

Check it out! Sensible New Year Pattern Haul not only all made before the end of February, but all posted before the end of February too! Probably best you don't get used to that.

It's taken me a long time to get round to making my second pair of trousers. I've basically stopped wearing them, except my one pair of jeans and my comfy around-the-house trousers, because fitting trousers is a nightmare and buying them is even worse. It is something I promised I'd get my head round this year, and the By Hand London Holly pattern was as non-threatening a place as any to start. The BHL blog assured me that these were about the easiest things to sew in the world, and they haven't lied to me before.

This fabric is a black stretch suiting that I got in John Lewis. Part of me feels a bit bad that it's just plain black fabric and it doesn't photograph that well for sewing-blog purposes, but I do want to make things I'll actually wear. I have a pair of navy polka-dot cropped trousers for the summer and a couple of black and white patterned jersey pairs, but I am not going to be wearing orange bulldog-print cotton on my lower half. I'm just not. Black trousers. Deal with it.

The fabric is stretchy enough that I can get them on without bothering with a zip. I did actually put a zip in, but it kept getting stuck (I bought a bunch of concealed zips from a market stall and that was not a good idea), so I took it out. I also let the seams out around the hips, and if I make these again I'll grade out two sizes in the hip instead of one. Because I didn't have a zip, I also needed to nix the waistband. What I've basically ended up with is a pair of trousers halfway between workwear and pyjamas. Which is great.

These trousers are designed to completely cover your feet, but I've tried that kind and they are not for me. I trip over, I step on the hems. I know people who've tried to explain to me that I just haven't got the length exactly right, that there is a magic length where they cover your feet and you don't trip, and I totally believe that they have foot-covering trousers that don't trip them up. Me? Nope. I am really good at tripping up, and my trousers will not be covering my feet. I left a fair amount of fabric in the hem, though, so if I end up wearing these with higher heels I can take them down a little bit.

I'd like to make another pair of these properly (i.e. with the zip and waistband and all the stuff that makes it not just two great big tubes sewn together), but I'll need to go back and adjust the pattern, especially if I decide not to use stretch material. These are super-comfy, but they would NOT be super-comfy if they didn't stretch. I'd also like to make a couple of tops that go with high-waisted trousers, since I have at most three tops to wear with trousers right now. 

And finally, a pose that made sense at the time:

...no idea. Not a one.