Cutting it fine..... Part 4

Hmm... so, in retrospect, I should have started my resurgent dressmaking journey with something other than trousers.  They look so easy don't they?  Basically two tubes of fabric joined in the middle.  We wear them every day and sort of assume we know how they work.  I've been making them in miniature for more years than I care to remember, although, to be fair, the legs were always cut on the fold and they didn't have pockets or elasticated waistbands.

Well, I now have a whole new respect for actual trouser makers.  Trousers are tricksy buggers and devilishly difficult when dissected into their component parts which don't bear any resemblance to the finished item.

I should have started with a top.  Front. Back. Simple. 

Having prevaricated and procrastinated for the past week, I finally bit the bullet today and set about cutting out my trousers, according to my revised toile pattern.   It took several hours before I so much as put scissors to fabric.  I must have checked my pattern layout eleventy times, heeding the old adage about measuring once, cutting twice as I only had enough fabric for no mistakes.

I can't say my cuts were smooth and straight.  The drapey fabric was slippery and kept moving around on the table, despite my weighting it down with a few strategically placed plant pots.  However, I did eventually end up with two trouser fronts, two trouser backs, two pairs of pockets and one waistband casing. 

Despite being advertised as an 'easy' pattern, the instructions bamboozled me.  I must have pinned and re-pinned each front and back a dozen times, constantly checking if I had the correct front/back and if the right/wrong side was facing the right/wrong way.  If second guessing oneself was an Olympic sport I'd have won several gold medals today. 

Counter-intuitively, I had to pin a front and back together, rather than the two centre fronts.  I suspect that's due to the inseam pockets in the sides, which are a problem for another day.  Thus far I've sewn exactly two seams and overlocked the raw edges, which was a mission in itself.  Now I'll carefully press my not exactly straight inside leg seams before moving onto the far trickier crotch seam, which is all on a curve.  Not unlike my own learning curve which is currently vertical!

Sheesh!