During the Minerva Meet-up in June 2014, I met Claire from Eliza M Vintage Sewing who suggested that I try the Hop and Swing pants pattern. I thought that being petite and not the slimmest of the bunch these pants won’t look that great on me! But I decided to follow her advise and got the pattern and fabric (light denim) available at Minerva Crafts shop.  Just click on the picture if you want more details about the pattern and buy it from the Eliza M website.

The pattern is a simple pattern to follow high waist and a wide leg.

It ’s a very quick make! If I were a bit more organised and set myself the task of just working on them I would have finished them in about 3 to 4 hours no more. The pattern has 4 pieces.

What I love about these patterns it that I fit almost perfectly into a size 12, so no adjustments were needed other than considering to raise the hem.

I did not use the instructions, and I decided to move the invisible zip from the centre back to the side! It just feels wrong to me to have it in the back of the crotch seam! Also, I could not find in the local fabric shop an invisible zip for the 12” but for 16”. Just imagine how would a 16” zipper go into the centre back seam!??!! Ha Ha! I would have thought it would have been a pain to open and close it! LOL!  For this one, I  used my new invisible zipper foot that has a little prong in front that keeps the zipper teeth out of the needle and I was impressed! it went in perfectly first time! not need to use my ‘friend’ the unpick this time .  On moving the zip to the side, I have adjusted the back piece to cut on the fold as I did not need the centre back seam on it anymore. The easiest thing to do removed the seam allowance from the centre.

The fabric was a dream to use! I chose to overlock the pieces before construction, so they look awesome on the inside as well as the outside. At the same time, I also decided to hand-stitch the facing(to make the stitch invisible and make sure the facings lie flat!

Also, I used a 5 cm hem allowance! And then because I still felt the pants are a bit too long I turned them over again, making the hem a bit heavier,  did not feel like unpicking it and shorten them and them re-hem! To much work! I wanted to wear the pants sooner rather than later!

The pants have a bit of a ‘70s feel to them, a bit too vintage! But by choosing denim they are at the limit for me! Great for autumn! Seems that without trying to hard to sew an autumn wardrobe I managed to do it by mistake! I never think of sewing for a certain season! That would require a lot more planning on my part,  which I am not to keen on! I like to sew stuff I get inspired and feel like making so I might be sewing shorts in winter, only to have to wait until summer to wear them!  LOL!