There are so many times finding the right pants can be a drag. Style Arc’s Lola Woven Pants were terrific and the fit made me quite excited.

I really wasn’t sure that I had anything that I could pair with these pants and low and behold, I found this ponte top I made last year – that’s why I was really excited.

This month’s Minerva post is about these pants. They’re made using John Kaldor Polyester Crepe Fabric. The colourway is called Olivia Pink. I simply love the name of this colourway.

It’s a light-weight fabric. Washing this was quick and the colour is fast.

The pattern recommends ironing after each step which keeps your sewing sharp. This fabric only needs medium heat, if that.

What is perfect with this fabric is that it’s great for travel. Not much ironing needed.

The large print is bright, distracting and fun. PS. This fabric is currently on sale right now. Once it’s sold, it’s sold.

Now for the Lola pants.

The fabric is woven so I was keen to see how these Lola pants would work with a partial elastic waistband.

I learnt a new skill and relearned an existing skill.

The new skill learnt was sewing a partial elastic waistband. This feature makes these pants look wearable to more places than the gym.

The front waistband is flat so I can wear these pants to a lot more places. I’m looking forward to making these in a plain colour fabric for work pants.

I used elastic that wasn’t 4cm wide but it was wide enough for what I needed. I would definitely use 4cm wide elastic in my next order.

The existing skill I relearned was sewing in a normal dress zipper. These pants have pockets that give you the option of adding a zipper.

Because I’m testing this pattern for the first time, this was definitely one option from this pattern I was going to follow through with.

The other option you can choose to include is to add elastic on the hem across the back leg piece. I couldn’t see the benefit of this feature for these pants so I hemmed these pants with a row of machine stitching.

Going back to the zipper pockets, here are some progress shots I took so you can see why a bit of hand stitching can make a lot of difference to the finished project.

I will definitely use zipper pockets for future work trousers and trousers made for travel.

Step 1: pinned in zipper

Step 2: Checking if the pinning was accurate and seeing that it’s not good enough.

Step 3: Hand basting these zippers in place so when I machine sew them in, I know they will be sitting in their correct position.

Step 4: Being happy after you’ve machine sewn in the zipper and it’s read for ironing.

When you sew the pocket bag for these pockets, there needs to be enough zipper tape to sew the pocket bags onto them. I’m glad I spent the time hand basting the zippers in before machine sewing them.

On the pattern I made my usually sway back adjustment and lowered the centre back curve.

With this fabric, these pants are really light and fold up easily if you’re packing for a quick getaway.

Sewing doesn’t always have to be serious business. It’s good to have a bit of fun and enjoy the finished product.

Thanks
Minerva!