Hello all! Today I've got a super quick and easy make to share with you. I got this beautiful blue floral jacquard type fabric for my birthday and was completely stumped by it. You see, it has a 1 way stretch, but not in the way that you'd expect! It doesn't stretch across the width of the fabric, oh no. It stretches down the length of the fabric, which is totally bizarre.
The weird direction of stretch had me stumped for a while. I didn't know what would benefit from that stretch going down the length of the fabric. In the end, I decided to stick to what I know of stretch and just cut everything on the cross-grain, so the stretch was going across like it normally is.
The only decision left was what to make from this beautiful fabric. Trousers seemed perfect. I haven't owned a pair of floral trousers in a while, and I thought they would look pretty cool. Instead of using the Ginger Jeans pattern (which would have been the most logical starting point) I decided to use my 'boyfriend jeans' as a base.
To use my jeans as a base I put one leg inside the other and pinned it to my fabric. I then cut straight around it without seam allowances because I was hoping the stretch in the fabric would balance it out. I then did the same for the back pieces. However the back pieces were wider than the front pieces so I couldn't get them to lay flat. To sort this out I measured how much the back piece overlapped onto the other side and just added that on as I cut.
The fabric had 2 sides, one with a darker floral pattern and a lighter background and one with a lighter floral pattern on a darker background. I preferred the lighter floral pattern on a darker background so I went with that as my right side.
I was expecting to have to put in a zip but it turned out that my fabric was stretchy enough to not need any. So, I guess that actually makes these leggings? To keep them up I stretched and sewed clear elastic around the waist, then turned it under.
It was really a guessing game how this experiment would work out. These trousers turned out to be quite fitted, which would have been a nightmare if the fabric didn't have as much stretch as this one does. These trousers are so comfortable. Look, I can do lunges in them and everything!
They ended up being quite high rise, which is good because I'm planning to make a crop top for a 2 piece setacular for all of these parties that keep cropping up. Ahhh, uni life,
It makes me very happy how well they go with this hat.
I'm so happy that this experiment worked out well. I wore them to the Vaults at Waterloo on Saturday to see an Actor Musician production called Thisbe which was fantastic, and I felt super cool.
Thank you very much for reading, to my Dad for picking out this fabric for me and to Mary-Kate for braving the cold for pictures. I'm much obliged.
Lauren xx
