Loes Hinse Hepburn Pants

The LH Hepburn Pants deserve a separate post. These pants surprised me in several ways, but I wanted to try the pattern anyway. I was concerned about the gathers at the waist as I have certainly don't need any extra bulk in that area. The gathers smooth out so much during wear that there was no problem. The fly front instructions were different and I feared that would give me problems. Funny, the mind works in strange ways and sure enough they did give me the problems that I expected. Actually, they are much easier than the traditional fly zipper opening. I somehow made them difficult. I won't get into the construction details as Shannon did such a great tutorial. If you want to make these pants, I suggest that you read her tutorial. This link shows all the many samples of the pants she has made. If you scroll down to 8/14/09, you'll have the tutorial.

My version of the pants was made from toffee silk noile from Nancy's Notions. The fabric sewed beautifully. For the first time I attached elastic with the serger. That worked really well and is a lot faster than using the sewing machine. The finish is sooo much neater. I do have to practice getting my gathers more even, but the results this time look fine when I'm wearing the pants. Here's a picture that shows the full pants:

I'll definitely be making these pants again. I have a number of comfortable pants patterns, but these rate #1. The sewing doesn't take much longer than pullon pants (unless you try to make them difficult like I did) and the fit is nicer especially around the hip and tummy area (I don't need any extra fabric there!).