Pattern Testing: Lauren Trousers

*Pattern Testing agreement does not include pattern promotion. All opinions are my own*

This pants pattern was love at first sight! I had promised myself some down time after a whirlwind year of testing and other sewing tasks, but as soon as I saw Lore's tester call, I HAD to join in. These pants also fit the bill of this little outfit that I would like to sew over the holidays, which I will reveal in another post, heh. ;) 

Presenting... the Lauren Trousers!

The Lauren Trousers features a paperbag pants waistband and faux welt pockets. I absolutely love the design from the pant leg shape to the pleats... absolutely stunning! These are my favorite me-made trousers to date. Mostly because I feel I have a better grasp of pants-fitting this time around, and have achieved a pretty good fit (in my opinion anyway). Pants fitting is definitely not easy, and I still have plenty of experimenting in terms of fit and figuring out what kind of ease I prefer. Although I won't be offering any amazing pants fitting tips in this post, I will definitely be encouraging you to give pants, ANY PANTS, a try. If you keep reading, you'll find out that I'm also still learning on my pants-fitting journey.

 

Size Selection and Fitting the Toile with Top Down/Center Out Method

I chose the US2 size since I fit straight into that size. Right off the bat, I took off 3" on the legs because I'm vertically challenged. Since I am still studying Ruth's (@ithacamaven on IG) Top Down/Center Out Method for fitting pants on my own, I thought this would be a great opportunity to practice! Here is a link to Ruth's method in a few quick slides: https://www.instagram.com/p/CNLaX1NMHMD/?utm_medium=copy_link

At the time of toiling, I hadn't fully grasped the method yet (I mean, I still don’t think I do), which is why you see an elastic holding up my half-toile. SPOILER ALERT: because I wasn't applying Ruth's method correctly, I ended up struggling with the pants fitting, so try not to do what I did 😆 But if you're reading this and want to fit with her method, DON'T DO WHAT I DID! I would recommend using the facing as the constructed "waistband" and sew in the pleats at the correct location (2cm below the pant top), because the waistband extends above the waistline and holds the pants up. If you've been studying Ruth's method, waistband is not where your waist is. It's where you want the waist to be!

Half Toile: Front

Half Toile: Back

The pants actually fit me super well right out of the envelope with the half-toile, and I was extremely happy with how it looks. I did need to nip in a tiny bit on the pant leg outseam to reduce some bagginess. The other thing I did not like was that the pocket bag was not nearly deep enough for modern cell phones. So I went ahead and extended the pocket bag by 3", then true the outseam with the pants leg piece. 

Half Toile: Side

Fabric Choice

The pattern recommends medium/heavier weight fabric like denim, leather and garbadine. But I had recently unearthed this beautiful steel grey tropical wool suiting I bought from The Fabrics Store NZ at the beginning of the pandemic that I think would work beautifully with this pattern. The drape of this fabric is gorgeously silky, and it has a very small amount of mechanical stretch cross-wise. Upon checking with Lore, I got the green light to get started. 

This is my first time working with suiting, and I am very grateful for Bella's (designer from Bella Made Patterns & real-life tailor) advice on how to treat this wool suiting. Her advice was to machine wash the fabric on delicate cycle for trousers-making, and steam treat for jacket-making. If I were to make a suit set, it's best to machine wash the fabric such that the fabric texture or shine wouldn't be different after different pre-treatment. Thanks for the tips, Bella!

The pattern is meant to be a tailored "Designer Edition" pants, so of course I had to go the extra miles and pretend to be a tailor! I'm no expert and definitely still practicing and learning these tailoring skills, but I enjoyed the process a lot. It took me a really, really long time to lay out the patterns, add in seam allowances, and thread mark the darts/hem/grain. 

Living my tailoring dream

Sewing Instructions

The instruction booklet was very detailed, I feel there is definitely enough details in there for adventurous sewists to tackle these pants provided that one reads the instructions carefully. My favorite part of the instruction booklet was the illustrations! They are so high quality, with so many details. If you're on a phone or tablet, I highly recommend zooming in to appreciate all the information that is included in the graphic. 

Sewing the zipper with the original instructions was tricky. Luckily, Lore was very open to my suggestion and other testers’ feedback. She quickly worked to incorporate another more straight forward/accurate (to me) zipper construction for the final pattern. 

Sewing Detours at the First Fitting in Final Fabric

After I made up the pants in final fabric, I found some fit issues. I guess there's a reason why you fit your toile in a fabric that's similar drape to the final one - I just could never find anything like that in my stash that I would willingly sacrifice as toile fabric. Another thing to note was that, I added 1/4" extra seam allowance on top of the existing 3/8", so there is a possibility of my inability to mark and cut accurately. It's a skill that I am still practicing. 

First Fitting: Side

First Fitting: Back

 

Correcting the waist circumference

Back to the fit issues. First, my waistband was sitting way lower than I thought it should. When I took a measuring tape to the waist circumference, it turns out to be 2" more than I thought it should be! My waist at fitting measures 25.5" (it definitely fluctuated), and the pants measured 27.5". So I spread the difference over the CB seam, side seams, and front pleat and took in a total of 1.75". Here are the exact changes I made: 

• removed 1/4" at CB (total 1/2") 
• removed 1/4" at each side seam (total 1/2") 
• removed 1/8" at each front pleat

Side note, I didn't take the waist in for the full 2" because I wanted to keep the pants slightly loose so I can wear it with a fluctuating waist. A belt is always helpful to hold the pants up, too. ;) I also didn't change the waist-to-hip area as I thought the hip curve looked really good to me. 

Roomy pant legs

Another fit issue I had were some very roomy pant legs... to the point of clown pants. The fabric drape just seem to magnify the roominess of the pants. But if I held the pants all the way up at my natural waist, the pants look fine. So, if I'm being honest, there are a few reasons on my part that caused this: 

One, where the waist is sitting wasn't where it was intended. I had neglected to shorten the rise because I thought the muslin fit okay. In reality, the pattern drafts for a taller person, so it would make sense to check that the rise is consistent with my own when I was shortening the legs. But the truth is that if I had spent some more time sitting and wearing the muslin, perhaps I would have noticed this. Then again, hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it? 

 

Can you tell the difference when I held up the pants vs not? 

Two, I had addressed this earlier, but it's possible my cutting was not accurate and the additional seam allowance I added had indeed come back to bite my butt (no pun intended lol). I ended up taking in the crotch seam by 1/4" and yes, that means I now have a longer crotch length to adjust.

Three, it really is a personal preference when it comes to pant leg width. My preference seems to be much narrower than the drafting. However, I absolutely think it's important to consider the design of these pants. These are meant to be trousers, so think having the fabric drape over your butt/hips and hang straight from there. Therefore, there is an element of constraint here where you have to trade a signature trouser look and slimmer legs.

All that babbling to say, after I adjusted the waist to sit properly where I wanted, I took in the pant legs for a slimmer look. On the inseam, I took in 1/8" on each leg piece (total of 1/4"). And on the outseam, starting under the pocket welt, I took in 1/4" on the leg pieces (total of 1/2") all the way to the hem. In essence, I easily graded down 2 sizes on the pant leg width. 

 

I promise if I stood up properly and fix my tucked in top,
the wrinkles wouldn't look as bad. 

Back side of pants, complete with all the wrinkles

Things to watch out for while sewing these: 

Because the trousers need to hang straight, I highly recommend spending the time to block the fabric and get your grain straight. I'm sure we all skip over this step every once in a while, but to get maximum beautiful drape, please block your fabric. The pattern recommends chalk-marking the grainline and it's very sad to see it not hang straight. Just don't give future-you the urge to kick present-you in the butt. ;) 

I really like the idea to sew front pleats and back darts at the last step for more flexible and easier fit. But you do have to make sure the grainline is at the center of your leg. 

 

Another thing is to anticipate bulk as you approach the end of construction. The design of these pants have you sew belt loops constructed out of 4-layers of interfaced fabric (think a double-fold bias tape) onto the waist area where there is a pleat/dart (self fabric + interfaced waistband facing x2). So you're dealing with a lot of bulk here. I love the design enough to not complain about the bulk, but it should be noted that you may want to consider using a 100/16 needle and a walking foot like I did, so the machine can handle feeding through and sewing over the drastically different thickness. I also prefer hand-stitching the belt loops down at the V-shape instead of bar tacking it with the machine. It just looked a lot cleaner for me. Don’t forget to use a thimble! ;)

Future Iteration After Wearing These for a day

I'm beginning to understand why some people just make wearable toiles. I can see the benefit of moving around in the toile to consider additional pattern adjustments prior to cutting into precious fabric. After wearing the pants for a full day of activities, I will be shortening rise (~0.5-0.75") on my next pair so that the crotch point sits a bit closer to mine. I did notice a bit of excess back crotch length, but this is likely because I extended the crotch length as a result of taking in the crotch seam.

 

Incorporating Adjustability for the Lauren Trousers

!!Disclaimer!! I'm still studying this adjustability concept so I'm still making it up as I go here. 

I had set out to add seam allowances for future adjustability to these pants, but I found it quite difficult to have it make sense in my head. The pocket detail and extended waistband also make it a bit tricky for incorporating adjustability, like tailor trousers would. 

I started by following the recommendation from Making Trousers by David Page Coffin. In the book, it mentions how bespoke Men's trousers usually include extra seam allowances for adjustability purposes. I added extra seam allowances on the outseam and the top of the crotch in the waist area. I'm honestly not too sure how to use that to my advantage at the moment. The design features pleats and darts sewn in at the very end of the construction, so that could be a potential way to easily take in/out the pants. But given what an inconvenience it was to sew through bulky layers in order to attach the belt loops, I would be less likely to undo them and adjust the darts/pleats. I think I can still manage with side seam adjustments and crotch seam adjustments, but don't count me in for the darts/pleats adjustments. 

I am not sure what I'm laughing at,
but I love this candid photo.