The Late Night Sewist

Hey!

This is my first post as a mother of two! Our little baby boy Lennart was born on July 12th and everyone in the family is trying to find their place in this new situation. There are moments where everyone has a different “want” and “need” and it is hard to decide who gets what first 😀 However, we are so privileged to have the best grandmother and mother in law one can wish for (and Lennart was born exactly on her birthday!!), so there have been moments that I have actually been doing some sewing and now writing this post as well. Both kiddos are asleep, what a bliss 🙂

The old debts that I mention are the three pairs of Jalie Vanessa pants that I have made over the last year and mentioned several times but not really talked about them. One reason was that there were no proper photos, the other that soon after making the last two pairs I started to show some baby belly and I was at that point not ready to give any hints to anyone. Now that almost two weeks have passed since I gave birth, I don´t mind showing them even with my postpartum belly. I wore the first pair I made, which was about the same time last year, together with my new Style Arc Como Knit Top. The latter was sewn “blind” during the last weeks of my pregnancy, since I had no idea how it will fit, but I decided to trust Style Arc.

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The fabric for these pants is a rather cheap polyester that is very surprisingly really comfortable and perfect for this pattern: it is light and airy and it barely wrinkles, making them perfect for travel, for example. After making them last summer, I wore them to work almost every day because these pants look work-appropriate despite being so comfy and they were also a wardrobe staple during our trip to Spain (oh, those pre-corona perks of life!). No wonder I made another two pairs and I have fabric in stash for a brown version as well. I cut size V but I would suggest widening the calf part of the pants just a little bit, I have managed to make them fit by leaving a very small seam allowance, but anyone with stronger calves would need a little more space there.

A few pics from Spain here, wearing the pants with an oversized flounce top I made for the trip as well. By the way, this top turned out to be great during the last weeks of pregnancy as one of the very few (non-stretch) things I could fit my belly into. I used a very nice breezy viscose fabric for the top and together with the pants they were great, apart from the wrinkling of the viscose. The pattern for this top has somehow gone missing from my sewing room, otherwise I would have made more by now, but I am too bored for tracing…. It is originally a Simplicity/New Look/something from these companies pattern, but I cannot find the original pattern number online. I traced mine from Meine Nähmode 2/2019, but they don´t print the original pattern numbers.

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But now back to the Vanessa pants themselves… I guess the following photos show the versatility of this pant pattern the best, and I am sorry that I don´t have any better pics of the checkered version although these were my go-to work pants in autumn.

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Below you can see the tech drawings for the Jalie Vanessa pants and for the Como Knit Top by Style Arc. Maybe not here on the blog, but definitely on my Instagram account, I have mentioned that I have fallen in love with Style Arc recently. To be honest, I blind-sewed several things using their patterns during the last weeks and days of my pregnancy (this time it was the only thing to provide pleasure and kind of escape from my body that was just HUGE) and some of them are unfinished, waiting for a try-on and fitting adjustments. Hopefully blogging about them will not take a whole year as has happened with these pants here!

For the Como Knit Top, I made one major change that came about partially accidentally – I cut the top out and then realized the pattern called for a double front! No spare fabric left, but also thinking that it would be too warm for summer anyway, I just drafted a facing and I guess it was the right call, preserving the intended look but keeping it thin enough for the summer. I actually don´t see a reason why I would waste fabric for the double front anyway.

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And finally a couple of pics of the three versions of the pants together. As you can see I haven´t added a drawstring to any of the pairs and for the black version, I even omitted the buttonholes.

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Happy sewing everyone!