I'm back! Kind of.

2022 was a toughie. There was a lot of grief, a lot of trudging through the emotions, and a lot of healing the relationship with myself. I've definitely leaned into my word of the year "self-discover". I spent about 6 months in therapy to minimize my anxiety, learn to pay attention to my body, and cultivating positive self-talk and self-compassion. Overlapping with therapy was also 6 months of career coaching to elevate my self-care, change my mindset, put together the fragmented pieces of myself and explore my next career step. It was a lot of hard work, and definitely worth the effort at the end of the day. But my time was very much occupied by my personal development and sewing has taken a back seat in this season.

2022 Sewing Highlight: Clyde pants!

However, I did make a few things during this time. Not all were worth mentioning or even photographed, but they're all loved. One of which I end up really loving and want to highlight are these long overdue Clyde pants. I’ve had my eyes on the Elizabeth Suzann Clyde pants for a really long time, and have definitely seen many versions of these come and go on Instagram. I have had the paper pattern cut out and waiting for the right fabric to come along. Inspired by my increasing interest for minimalism and calming neutral color, I chose a natural color twill for these. Aren't they cute? 

I loosely followed Ruth’s (@ithacamaven) Top Down Center Out Method to fit these Clyde pants. If you’re interested in the method, check out her Instagram posts or Stacey’s YouTube tutorials (@thecrookedhem). I find the video tutorials helped clear up some confusion for me. Okay, so here’s how I used the method. I had already chosen a size with extra ease in my hips because I was too lazy to grade. I’m very lucky that I can fit into one straight size, which quite honestly makes it less work for me to fit. I didn’t fit a waistband first like the method dictate - oops. Because it was an elastic waistband, I thought I could get away with not fitting a waistband. And I did. I also didn’t follow the instructions to add additional side seams because I know the pants already came with extra ease due to the elastic waistband nature. The waistband is also grown on, so I didn’t need to add the extra 2” at the waistband seam for fitting. I tied an elastic on my waist and slipped the one leg mock up like the method teaches. I highly recommend following the tutorial to learn how to fit. After some pinning and tweaking, I’ve got the pants to fit much better. I had to take out some front crotch length and the waist seam looks a lot wonkier, but no pattern fits us perfect. That’s why we fit! Because the waist seam looks like a wavy ocean front, I decided to measure the seam length and drafted a separate waistband. The lovely thing here is that I can just change the waistband height to get a lower rise pants. I went with the 2” that the pattern calls for, and I really love the extra height because I really need more high waisted pants in my closet. I did also add interfacing to stiffen the waistband and one of the curved pocket pieces. I will say this fabric stiffened really well, so I was mindful about making the seams overly bulky and only applying interfacing to one of the curved pockets seam and staystitching the others. My desire to reduce bulky seams also mean I have serged most seams and skipped any topstitching. I quite like the clean, modern look instead of the utilitarian look that are the Clyde pants.

Sewing Goals for the rest of the year and 2023

I'm slowly getting back into the swing of sewing, but work demands has increased recently, in a good way. I'm also still committed to working on the Asian Sewist Collective Podcast, and at least one travel plan in the near future. I hope to keep up with my sewing practice with smaller chunks of time here and there, but will definitely take my time to sew. I’m hoping to make things that bring me joy, let me be creative and be more experimental. Hope you'll stick around for my adventures. 

Happy Holidays!