I decided to take apart some old RTW pants I had to make a pattern for some new skinny crop pants.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I really needed some new bottoms - something dressy, but comfortable to wear around the office.


I cut apart an old pair of pants and traced them on some brown packing paper. They are a nice simple design with hip pockets.


I had the opposite problem from my Burdastyle shorts (which gave me a bit of a wedgie) - my crotch was too deep and left a little too much ease in the crotch area. I tried to make the crotch more shallow, by doing the opposite of scooping out the crotch, but there was not enough fabric to do this properly.

I added some belt loops a single welt pocket on the back. The back is a little wrinkly, but they look better than my blue cotton stretch sateen pants.


Below, is a close up of the welt pocket. I think it turned out pretty good.


I added a button and hook on the waistband. I used my buttonholer once again - that is such a great tool.


To stabilize the waistband of this stretch woven fabric, I sewed a 1" strip of polyester 'silk' selvedge to the inside waistband piece. I sewed the strip at 3/8" and then ironed it under. This left 1/4" of the inside waistband piece to get sewed down when I stitched in the ditch on the bottom waistband front. I'm really happy with how this turned out and my waistband feels stable.  

Selvedge peeking out under waistband

I used more of the polyester 'silk' lining fabric (left over from my Cordova jacket) for my pocket linings. The pockets look nice and clean. I copied some RTW pants and did a french seam on the bottom of the pocket bags.


Overall, I'm pretty happy with the pants and the way they fit. The RTW pants were of a different type of fabric and didn't fit me perfectly, so I still had to fiddle with the fit a lot. It was also a challenge to make sure I was drafting pieces, like the hip pockets, properly. So, I learned a lot in the process, but I think I'm going to by a commercial pattern and alter that next time. 


With these pants and my Easy Tee, I'm ready for work!