She Who Sews

I came across the Orbis Skinny Harem pants pants in issue 13 of One Thimble magazine. I totally dismissed the pattern for a good while because I am not a fan of harem trousers in any way. I really, really don't like drop crotch pants, I just think they look silly. Maybe this is because I'm a 36 year old woman, and not a child?!

But I placed an order online before Christmas to get a batch of pdf patterns printed, and as I was scrolling through my pattern files, saw that this one came as an A0 file, so I added it in and got it printed just in case.



As it happens, it was a stroke of luck. I found some lovely fleece back jersey in Truro Fabrics in their city centre store (it's not available online) and bought some in marl grey with glittery blue and glittery pink stars for the kids. I took a bit of a gamble because it only had natural stretch, and no added elastane, when the pattern calls for 30% stretch minimum. I didn't size up, but on reflection I think perhaps I should have done. Repeated washing has the left the fabric with hardly any stretch at all now, and the kids are complaining that they can't get them on easily, oh dear.



Tracing off the pattern was a little confusing, every single size was printed in black and white, which wasn't ideal as it's a colour file, but colour A0 printing is far, far more expensive than black and white, and I'm inherently tight with money! This is not to say the pattern is confusing in any way. If I'd printed at home, and used the layers function it would have been more than easy, but I'm not a fan of cutting and sticking lots of pages together, and figured I'd try to shortcut it by printing the whole lot at once. In this case, it kind of backfired at me! I found it easy to grade between sizes for my daughter (age 3 width, and age 5 length) and traced a straight size 8 for my son.

It's a reasonably fabric hungry pattern as each leg piece is cut slightly on an angle, with the two front pieces being separate for the diagonal faux fly. I had to be careful with the age 8 ones to fit it all in before cutting (I've made that mistake before!). The age 3 ones were a lot easier as obviously they're smaller ;)



I totally forgot to reverse the front pattern pieces to make the fly fold the opposite way for my daughter's pair, so they're both 'boys' way round, but I don't think it matters too much.



I made the decision to have a closed, un-embellished fly as I didn't want to make this a feature. In the pictures, the fly flap is open, but I sewed them both shut afterwards. I don't own a coverstitch machine, so I sewed the pockets down with a zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine. I've discovered that both my old and my new sewing machine don't like sewing jersey unless I use a walking foot. Thankfully, this makes the whole process as easy as sewing a normal straight stitch seam in woven fabric. Anyone can do it as long as they have the correct tools.

Since making these I have read a pattern hack to create a completely flat front with only one pattern piece. I'd like to give this a go for my next pair.



I think the end result is pretty cool. They don't look like drop crotch harem pants to me. They are growing on me. At first they just reminded me of men's long-johns, but I'm past that now.



The kids love them, they're comfy and soft and warm. They love that they can join their hands together inside the pocket at the back, as this is the special feature, the pocket is a continuous one from left to back to right side. I think it's a cool design feature at the back, and I like the way the pockets flow.



I think the next pair I make will be for my daughter, in a cotton lycra jersey, so they are more like a pair of leggings. I'm thinking maybe in pink, as that is by far her favourite colour!

What would your kids want to wear, a snugly stretch sweatshirt material, or a normal legging material pair?


*Disclaimer: Some of the links in the post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission (the price stays the same for you) which will help me in the future to buy more patterns to share them with you!*