men’s pants

Know what is remarkably hard to find in life?  Men’s pants patterns (that aren’t tuxedo pants). The paucity of patterns out there leads me to the following possibilities:

1.  Men don’t sew their own pants.

2.  Women don’t sew their men pants.

3. No one has sewn pants since this pattern came out in approx. 1993:

4.  Men don’t wear pants.

None of the above makes any sense to me.  Women knit men articles of clothing all the time because if you are a knitter with a man-friend, you naturally want to knit him something so that he can measure your love for him in inches of hand-knit fabric.  Thus, if you are a sewer and you have a man-friend, don’t you want to sew him something so that he can measure your love for him in machine-stitched articles of clothing?  And since men don’t like stuffed animals, potholders, or other adorable and easy-to-gift sewing projects, aren’t pants the natural choice?  Because shirts are hard.  Shirts are really really hard.  I’ve been sewing for twelve years now, and I’ve never made a shirt successfully.

Anyway, despite the obstacle of not having a pattern, I made AQ some pants for Xmas (because I said Hey, I could sew you something and he said, as is only natural, How about pants?).  I did it by taking apart a pair of Goodwill-gotten khaki pants, also manufactured ca. 1993 but somehow more appealing than buying the Kwik Sew pattern above for $12 plus shipping.

Here are some shots:

baptism of the buttonholer on my sewing machine. it was awesome.

it was awesome because it worked.

i’m ridiculously proud of these pockets. fabric courtesy of Simple Savvy (see sidebar)

a creative cuff was required. actually, that was Simple Savvy’s idea. she’s so clever.

The hardest part BY FAR was sewing an honest-to-goodness fly.  Now, it wasn’t as tricky as making a shirt collar (have I mentioned?  SHIRTS ARE HARD) but it was pretty durn complicated without a freaking pattern.  So I ask you, Simplicity, New Look, Butterick, or heck, INDEPENDENT SEWING PATTERN DESIGNERS, will you please make a men’s pants pattern?