Having made Mark the brown linen trousers, I found that I could jigsaw a pair out for myself from the left over fabric, eliminating my entire stash of this fabric.

I used the Sew Over It Ultimate Trouser pattern; a slim fitting cropped pant with an invisible zip in the side seam and which is designed for woven fabrics.

I have seen so many gorgeous iterations of this pattern that I just had to buy it and make a pair or two for myself. However, my ankles go to a point and cropped pants make me look ridiculous, so I lengthened the legs by about 5cms.

I do need to sort out a flat bottom adjustment for these trousers too.

I’ve dithered on this pattern for quite a few weeks now, and finally decided that I had nothing much to lose except a bit of leftover fabric so I whizzed these babies up in very short order, using an invisible zip that I had bought in the Fabric Cave in Sydney for 50c.

Now I need to discuss my problems with side zips to see if others have these or is it just me? I find that if I have to rezip the trousers during the day, I need to hold my top up with my teeth because I need both hands (plus more if available) to get the zip done up. If I have a top with a lot of fabric, I need more teeth. Then there is something about my body which, when confronted with a side zip, decides that all the fat/squishy/wobbly bits rush over to the gap that I am trying to zip up and get pinched as I zip. This is where I need the extra hands – two to keep the sides together and two more to (a) push in the fat bits, and (b) pull the zip up. I did consider lying on the bed like we used to do in the 1960s in order to move the excess adipose tissue over to the non-zip side, but it’s a bit tricky doing that at work :). Having said all that, these trousers were actually not too difficult to zip up, although I did need the aforementioned teeth to hold my shirt out of the way.

Apart from my zip issues (and hey, there’s nothing stopping me putting the zip in the back seam), I really like these trousers and will possibly make more, although not for a little while – I have a big list of makes in my head.

The details: Pattern is Ultimate Trousers by Sew Over It, made from brown linen from Potter Textiles. The blouse is from my vintage pledge makes last year, and which I wouldn’t have considered wearing with these trousers except they appeared in the ironing pile together and I could see they were a match made in heaven.

Speaking of the vintage pledge, I am doing it again this year and here is my pledge:

I, Sue, from Fadanista, will make a vintage pattern every month, and will attempt to resize one really difficult pattern.

I am also participating in Jungle January this year and am hoping to wear my first make for both these pledges next weekend.