Peppermint Magazine Wide Leg Pants, but Jeans

It's everybody's favorite pay-what-you-want pattern from Peppermint Magazine, their Wide Leg Pants, remixed into the bluest of jeans. As a recent convert to wide leg pants,I have to say I understand why people like this pattern so much, independent of its variable price. They're quite basic which understandably makes them easy to adjust and adapt. And because they're so no-frills, the design elements it does have are emphasized in their necessity. The curved and/or pieced waistband and pockets with stays, for example, make for a better fitting and wearing experience. There's none of that lower back gaping or pocket bags shifting around uncomfortably. Everything stays in place with just a few small design choices. In short, I appreciate that the pattern is designed thoughtfully in spite of (or maybe because of?) its simplicity.

I cut a size C because it fit my waist perfectly, and then I worked downwards. I took the hips in and graded back towards C's side seam as I didn't want to sacrifice any width in the leg. I didn't make any other fit adjustments. I should have lengthened the fly extension to avoid that doing that shimmy dance one does to get a waistband over their hips. I didn't shorten the pants at all. Between these and Ann Tilley's Magic Pants, maybe pants designed for average-height people are more common than the Big 4 and RTW companies would lead me to believe. (Don't get me wrong, it's not at all difficult to shorten too-long pants and I would never whinge about needing to do it, I'm just pleasantly surprised every time I don't).

One non-aesthetic change was that I cut the fly and the front leg in one piece instead of two sewn together. I find there's no need to install a front fly zipper in any way different from this method from Threads and I will be steadfast maintaining this stance till I die. I don't care if trying alternative methods is educational, if it will expand my skill and mind, I'm not doing it and certainly not if it involves hand basting like it does in the Wide Peg Pants instructions. While I can't in good faith judge whether PepMag's method is or is not worth doing, as I didn't attempt it myself, I can opine from looking at the steps that it's more complicated than it needs to be. 

I'll say that the instructions in all other parts are completely fine. They are neither vague nor wordy and over-explanatory, they're perfectly serviceable. And you actually do have to glance at them even if you know how to make pants because the seam allowance varies depending on which step you're on. I found that aspect little irritating, but only a little.

I purchased this nonstretch indigo denim from my local fabric store. Sewing with denim, I thought it would be a waste of an opportunity if I didn't try to make them read as jeans, so I added back pockets, belt loops, and some lines of yellow topstitching thread. The pattern comes with a max seam allowance of half an inch, preventing me from flat-felling seams, but I did fake them where I could. The pants are missing a few key details typical for pair of jeans: the fifth pocket just for coins (I've never needed to use one of these), rivets on the corners of the pockets (I can live without them) and a back yoke (I'd like to sew one eventually). Even with those elements absent, they're still jeans-like enough to satisfy me. I'm no jeans purist. If such a person exists then I don't care to know about them in any capacity because they sound like they'd be exhausting.

As I'm modeling the pants, they fit closer than I when I tried them on two hours prior. I threw them in the wash before taking photos and I hope it's just the dryer tightening them up and not outright shrinking. I shrunk the fabric pretty aggressively during pre-treating, after all. I'm banking on the expectation that nonstretch denim should bag out after a while and that slightly too tight is actually ideal. Fingers crossed.

Summary of notes and modifications:

• Cut size C
• Took in the hips slightly
• Grown-on fly extension instead of sewn-on
  
• Added belt loops, back pockets, and topstitching
• Turned 3/8" twice for the hem
  
  
  

So, would I make these pants again? Maybe, leaning on the side of yes. It's a good pattern and I enjoyed sewing it but I 1) am all pants'd out at the moment and 2) want to find something with an alternative fit rather than try to hack this one into what I'm looking for. That mega-high waist looks nice, for example, but after wearing for a while I'd ideally want it lower.

I do want to make more jeans, eventually, but I want an actual pattern for them with a back yoke and everything. It's funny, for the longest time I had an explicable aversion to blue jeans and I only wanted them in black or gray. I don't know what changed my mind about the color itself, but seeing this shade combined with a trendy wide leg is healing my relationship to it. Or maybe it's the residual joy of making the most comfortable jeans I've owned in recent years coloring my perception of, well, the color. We're never going to be best friends, Blue, but you have a place in my life. I'm letting you back in.