So it’s been a very long time since I’ve actually written a blog post on here. I have a few drafts that got half finished but I never actually got around to posting them because I didn’t get the time or life just got in the way. Probably mainly that I didn’t get round to sorting out decent photos and all the hassle of editing and uploading them… I definitely need to find a better system for sorting out my photos, that way I might actually get around to posting about them more often.
Anyway that aside, let’s get down to talking about things that I actually have done! Pippa has been posting recently about her wardrobe basics where she has been making some wardrobe staples and those included some Closet Case Sasha Trousers.
I have also recently made some sasha trousers, although I think mine are probably slightly less of a wardrobe staple as I made them in a mustard stretch cotton! Personally at the moment I think mustard goes with quite a lot of things though so it might turn out that these are a staple… but I’d probably class my first pair of sasha trousers (made in a navy blue) as more of a staple.
Fabric:
These trousers were made with a lovely stretch cotton that I purchased from the LikeSewAmazing shop launch that I attended as I backed the shop campaign on Kickstarter (you can read about that here) and I treated myself to a few lovely pieces of fabric, which I will hopefully talk about in another post sometime.
I bought 1m of this fabric (despite the pattern saying 1.6m…) because I know that I can always squeeze my garments into a smaller piece of fabric than they say. It was possibly this fabric although not 100% certain as I didn’t buy it online.
I wasn’t really sure what to use for the pocket lining as I needed a reasonable amount of it and lots of the cotton in my stash didn’t really go with the mustard fully. But then my lining arrived for my Rumana coat (which I will post about soon hopefully) and I thought it would be perfect <3 This is floral viscose from minervacrafts, beautifully soft and pretty but it does fray quite a lot on the edges when sewing…
Pattern adjustments:
I decided to opt for the view A complete with the back welt pockets which I had omited last time. From my previous pair of sashas I knew that the pattern was a pretty good fit straight from the pattern (I cut the size 8 pattern) but needed a bit of adjustment on the waistband to shrink that. However after a bit of wear they tended to stretch out a fair bit.
So for this pattern I decided to take the pattern in a little. I took a bit out of the side seam (more so at the bottom to try and slim the leg a little) I also slightly increased the back dart and shortened the leg at the cuff and the crotch rise. Part of this shortening was due to it being slightly baggy and partly because the fabric shrunk slightly in the wash and I needed to fit the pattern piece in…
The making:
The making of these was relatively straightforward. I did have to do a bit of pattern tetris to start with to get all the pieces to fit in, the biggest of this was doing the waist band in four sections instead of in one piece (and I lined it the viscose instead of the stretch cotton).
But other than that it was a case of just following the instructions in the booklet. The guidance in the pattern is great and I find them really quite easy to follow. The trickiest bit of the make was probably the welt pockets as I had never done them before.
This was my first set of proper welt pockets, and they do take quite a long time… lots of steps and pressing and more steps and more pressing. But in the end I’m super pleased with how they turned out, the insides of all the pockets look so pretty as well 🙂
The steps for the welt pockets and the slash pockets take most of the booklet which means once they are done, the rest of the construction comes together quite quickly. Thankfully I’ve done 3 fly insertions now so I didn’t get stuck on that stage at all.
Until you get to the waistband that is… now here I did manage to muck up a little. Because I knew I had to adjust the waistband I left cutting it until I had the main trousers constructed. At this point I then measured all the various sections of the trouser top and my hips/waist at the top of the waistband etc. Then I separated it up and calculated all of the seam allowances and some for the front cross.
It was all going so well, with my seams lining up perfectly with the center back and side seams and the lining being cut in one piece so it looked smooth from the inside… however, I hadn’t quite accounted for the fly extension on one side of the trousers >.< so one side was great, but the other side finished short of the fly extension! Boooo, silly nikki! Thankfully it was relatively straightforward to make a modification that made it look like it was meant to be like that…
I created an extension for the fly extension with cotton on both the outer and the lining and attached this to line up with the center front seam so that it is perfectly aligned when the trouser front is closed. This also has the added benefit of adding a bit more stability to the fabric where the buttonhole and the bar and hook are located. It definitely added a bit more faff to the construction though. Especially as I had bound the bottom of the waistband lining with bias binding and so I had to also extend that. It all turned out fine in the end though!!
I then decided to position the belt loops on the side seams, instead of slightly back from them which is where the pattern says, as this means all of my waistband seams are hidden and the waistband looks like a continuous piece from both the inside and the outside.
After the faff of the waistband extension, actually attaching the waistband was quite straightforward and I actually got a much neater finish than on my first pair of sashas. 🙂
The finish on the inside front of my trousers – my mistake actually looks like it’s meant to be like that! 
The finish on the inside back of my trousers
Conclusions:
I’m really pleased with how these turned out although the lighter colour means that the creases show up really easily but that would probably be the case with any light colour. They are still a little tight when I sit for a long time, hopefully that will ease a little after a few outings.
I really love the colour of these and I’m so glad I got the fabric after umming and ahhing in the shop for a while.
Although I thought that they might end up a little cropped they aren’t actually too short 🙂 Probably because I didn’t do a double fold hem.
I also love the insides and how neat the finish is, it does make me a little sad that they aren’t on show somehow, but it makes me happy knowing they are there.
But for now it’s time to find out what matches with them in my wardrobe!
Here they are pictured with a seamwork neenah/ sewaholic renfrew top mash up which I whipped up in a break from trouser sewing.
