MadrasPatch Pants

Yesterday, a patchwork pillow.  Today, patchwork pants.

The base fabric is the other piece of ready-made madras patches, which I know is a "traditional" preppy thing, and I was ready to make a pair of shorts for my sarcastic child to wear.  When I double-checked with him that he did want shorts made from it, he asked for pants.

Hmm.

I consulted the measurements listed on good ol' KwikSew 2544, and confirmed that he's currently at size 12 in leg length and somewhere between size 10 and 12 in waist width.  (That pattern goes to size 14, so I think there are a few more years of use coming from that pattern.)  I then laid the pieces roughly on the cloth and confirmed that there was just enough for the main pieces.

  I only had to improvise around the limited yardage on the pockets, where I was ready to make them from a completely different madras/tartan/plaid in a roughly analogous color range, but it worked out that only the inner halves of the pocket bags needed to be in the different fabric, which you can just see here

Really, it is different.

 The wrong side of this patchwork is not a pretty place, and, like the pillow, I still serged the edges of every seam I sewed

 And I edge stitched and top stitched just about everywhere

 The first line of stitching on the faux fly is not the smoothest, because I did it from the inside.  Beyond this picture, no-one will notice.

I didn't bother serging the upper edge, which I usually only do to give myself a reference for how far to turn the edge under.  I just eyeballed that this time, along with how much to turn under for the casing.  Any irregularities are hidden in the elastic gathers.

I also eyeballed the depths of both turns for the hems, which I ironed after sewing the outer leg seams but before the inseams, so I could iron it while flat.

 But hey I ironed.

Someday I'll add back pockets to one of these KwikSew 2544s, even if the pattern doesn't call for them.


There is a touch of  extra work on the back--when I first got this yardage, it was sewn into a tube.  When I removed that seam, I managed to pop the seam between two of the patches, and I couldn't quite avoid that when I was laying out the pattern pieces .  Because the patches are all top stitched, it wasn't as easy as just sewing the seam back together.  I probably could have hand-stitched invisibly, but...yeah.  Zigzag it is.  Like the wiggly stitching on the faux fly, this is not in a position to be noticed when worn.

 I showed the pants to him when I finished, and he gave a thumbs up.  His Dad said they looked like pajamas.  I say they look finished.