Esther? I hardly know 'er

(Oh yes, we have progressed into Dad Joke titles, lovely readers.)

I wasn't sure I was even going to post about these.

Having been not the remotest bit interested in wearing trousers for the past few years, I've suddenly found myself wanting to wear them all the time and getting increasingly annoyed that I don't have any. Trouser fitting is still a scary thing for me, because I've made so few. I don't really understand all the ins and outs of adjusting for certain issues so it's still a matter of luck whether my trousers fit or they do that thing (everyone has a different that thing, but mine is either a gaping waistband that sinks dangerously low when I sit down, or fabric settling in below my belly making me look like I'm wearing a nappy. Or just trousers that won't go over my thighs).

I will start to get a grip on this fitting thing. But first, some actual wearable trousers. I thought the Victory Patterns Esther looked like just the thing - loose and comfortable, but interesting and cool at the same time.

The pattern is very well drafted, as you might expect, and came together quite easily. The trouser front is made up of two pieces per leg, which are pleated and overlapped at the waist making a kind of triangle shape at the thigh (it's really hard to see in this dark fabric, sorry). This is the reason I thought I didn't like these trousers. If those pleats aren't knife-sharp and lying as flat as they possibly can, they're not pretty. In a super-light fabric like this, the inside of the pleats can fall out and form what my boyfriend referred to as "pubic flaps". Don't have extra pubic flaps.

This fabric is from Walthamstow, and unless all my toiles go drastically wrong you'll be seeing a lot more of it. Sometimes I buy ten metres of something just because I can.

My intention was to install a press stud for the fastening rather than a button as directed or a sew-on stud as I would normally do, but after my first practice go (I got everything installed properly but then the whole thing just ripped straight out of the fabric as soon as I tried to use it) I gave up and went back to the sew-on method. I really dislike hand-sewn fastenings, but clearly I have not found my way around that yet.

Having got the pleats sitting properly, I really like the silhouette that these trousers give. They sit at the natural waist, there's enough room for my hips without sizing up, and because the pleats fall straight down they don't give me that pot-bellied silhouette from the side. I wasn't sure about the shape of the legs at first (I was expecting them to be a bit wider at the bottom), but it's definitely grown on me. 

I'm in two minds as to whether or not to make another pair of these. I definitely want more lightweight spring/summer trousers, but this is quite a specific shape and I don't know if I want to faff about with all the pleat pressing for a second time. I'm considering trying to mash this pattern up with the Megan Nielsen Flint trousers - I love the shape of those but I can't see the ties holding up in the kind of lightweight fabric I would want to use. I don't think I'd ever use the Esther for colder weather trousers - wool is one of the recommended fabrics, but it seems like an awful lot of bulk and volume for winter weight fabric. Maybe that's just me and my preferences, though. 

All in all, I'm quite pleased with these and glad I managed to rescue them from the brink of failure. Yay!

Next up: finally getting on with spring and some workout gear!