Trousers – a real challenge…?

March 12, 2014 by steelyseamstress 1 Comment

Sad to say that the day has come to say goodbye to my pale green corduroy trousers – they have served me well. I simply can’t wear these threadbare items any longer and in a moment of overambitious optimism I have decided that I’m going to try to make a replacement for them.

I’m under no illusions that this project is going to contain a huge number of firsts for me. First project where the fabric has a nap. (That’s raised fibres on the surface on the fabric, not a short snooze!) First attempt at flat fell seams. First pair of trousers. First fly zip. Yikes, just this list is making me feel daunted…..

This whole project represents so many reasons why I want to sew. I haven’t been able to find a replacement for these trousers and sewing your own clothes, at least in part, is about taking control in our clothing choices and not being a victim to the whims of the fashion industry. Corduroy must be so unfashionable at the moment, I simply haven’t seen it much in the shops. Do I care? Absolutely, not!

To start with, I decided simply to record how the trousers have been constructed and find out how to do the basic techniques that I know I’ll need. Rather than just a pencil and paper, I wondered how I could draw on the computer. I had often wondered whether to use Adobe Illustrator for this sort of purpose, but Illustrator is rather expensive for the use I’ll get out of it and experience Adobe Photoshop has taught me that I would probably use only half of its functionality and struggle to learn how to do that at best.

I found an Open Source graphics editor called “Inkscape” and I have been playing with that. It has the advantage of being free and from the little I have attempted it is quite intuitive. Although, my first attempt at free-hand drawing is a little wobbly, I did manage to sketch my trousers. I’m sure I’ll get better.