I’ve had a piece of yellow viscose linen in my stash since last year. It’s a gorgeous colour, and one of those fabrics that I was a little scared to cut into as I wanted to make something ‘perfect’. I thought that was going to be a Zadie jumpsuit…but I only bought 2 metres, so I had to go back to the drawing board.
A couple of our friends started their own business a while ago, and on their Instagram stories one day, I spotted her wearing some amazing yellow elastic waist trousers. She’d bought them a while back and they were no longer for sale…so the obvious thing was to make them! At the time we were moving house, and then we went through a period of my daughter waking up regularly throughout the night, and me being poorly from numerous bugs she picked up at nursery. So it’s taken a while to being these elastic waist pants to life.
I’ve had the Winslow Culottes pattern for years and have made a few much loved pairs of the shorts (Version A). Although I haven’t made them in a good few years, the blogs she posted a few years ago about different hacks have always been in the back of my mind. There are some amazing tie waist versions…which truth be told are not toddler friendly. And then there’s the elasticated waist hack, which is what I used to make these glorious yellow swishy pants.
I had initially thought of another indie pattern for the elastic waist trousers, but why buy a new pattern when you have one that’s perfectly fine in your stash – it just needed a few modifications, which are expertly described in Helen’s blog post. I cut out the size 14, taking 3inches off the side seams, drafted a new waistband, and skipped the pockets (yes, I regret that terrible decision!). I definitely could have taken more off, or made a smaller size, but I still love these as they are.
It should have been a super easy sew. The first garment sewn on my beautiful new Pfaff machine (not an ad, I bought it myself).
But silly me, trying to rush, sewed the two back leg pieces together, and the two front pieces together. So silly. Even sillier…I only realised after overlocking each of the seams together, trimming the bulk off them too. So frustrating! I definitely spent more time unpicking than sewing in this project. Once I’d unpicked, I marked the stitch lines with chalk so I could ensure I maintained the correct seam allowance and matched them up with the pins running parallel to the seam edges rather than perpendicular as I’d normally do.
After all of that faff, it was a pretty quick sew. Although I did manage to only attach one seam of the waistband to the trouser legs, instead of both the seams – it was easy to fix, but I made so many mistakes on this…
Anyhow, as you can see I adore these swishy amazing culottes. Perfect for warm days, super comfy, practical, and stylish, I’ve never felt more ‘me’ when wearing these…if only I’d added pockets!
Now, off to buy more yellow viscose linen to make that Zadie…
sew slow Sarah 
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