The sailing may be smooth; the swivels need some work

Earlier this year I pledged -- at least, I thought I pledged; my comment seems to have been eaten -- to make two vintage items: the Wearing History Smooth Sailing 1930s-style trousers and a dress from a pattern I bought in the 1980s. It's extremely unlikely I'll get around to making the dress before the end of the year, but these trousers have been on my wish list for a long time. I tried to kickstart them by including them on my FESA15 list, but life intervened and I never got around to buying the fabric.

I finally bought this navy poly/wool blend at the same time I got my Jenna fabric and tried to make the trousers up in time to wear with said cardigan to the One of a Kind show. Sadly, I ran into some waistband problems so I waited until I had more time to deal with them, because I have grown as a sewer and don't rush madly to finish makes anymore (Right? Right!). I finished them later in the week and wore them the next weekend to Fort York's Frost Fair, somewhat misnamed due to the fact that not only was there no frost, it was almost warm enough to be outside in a t-shirt for ten whole minutes.


The Frost Fair is a Christmas market, and all the vendors were inside the toasty warm buildings. We may have bought more things for us than gifts. Oops. Anyway, the DC thought it would be appropriate to take these photos next to the naval gun. Across from the Morris Dancers. You're welcome for the lack of video.



The naval gun is not exactly 1930s vintage -- it's closer to 1830s -- but we do what we can.



Anyway, back to the trousers. I wanted a pair of navy sailor trousers specifically for swing dancing (hence the somewhat costumey off-white decorative buttons), and these fit the bill nicely. The instructions are easy to follow and most of it went together in a matter of hours. I usually have to lower the waist and grade up at the hips, but in this case I cut a straight size 14 (no cuffs, no belt loops) with no modifications because I didn't know where the top would hit and I figured the wide legs would start around the hips and there would be enough room. Generally I get away with stuff like this, so I treat first attempts as wearable muslins. So how'd it work out this time?



Well, it's good enough. Even though it's a high-waisted trouser, the waist is way too high on me and I really need to stop futzing and learn how to do a full butt adjustment. Those wrinkles are not attractive, plus whatever the back equivalent of camel toe is, and it's sitting practically on top of my lowest rib. The DC likes it; he says it makes my legs look really long. It's pretty close fitting, and that's actually a good thing because what can happen while dancing is someone leads you from your hips and your clothes go one way while you go another. These won't budge.

Speaking of which...



I had to try out the dancing. Those shoes + those planks <> smooth swivels. Just sayin'.



I wanted to do a lapped zipper even though the seam allowance is only 1/2". I quickly found out why they don't recommend doing lapped zippers on less than 5/8" allowance, but I persevered. It can be done. It probably shouldn't be done.

So there I was, merrily sewing away, thinking I would have a new pair of trousers by noon, when boom. I went to attach the waistband but it was much too short. An inch or two too short. I thought maybe I had shrunk it while fusing the interfacing, but comparing it to the pattern piece showed that wasn't it. Doing a search on "smooth sailing trousers waistband too small" led me to this post from Adventures of a Young Seamstress who had pretty much the same problem. I didn't stay-stitch the waist of the main pieces and they stretched out. Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because did you know your rib cage is bigger than your waist? So things that are meant to fit around your waist won't quite go around your rib cage? Who knew? I could have and probably should have cut off the top inch of the trousers, but decided to just add an extension to the waistband. It gives me a little more ease, it was less work, and it doesn't really show.



I put snaps on because I thought a hook would tend to come undone during dancing. If you're thinking those snaps are uneven, you're not wrong. Couldn't be bothered to fix them. I sewed the snaps only to the inner waistband pieces because I don't want friction wearing away the thread.

I hemmed them a bit short for swing dancing in flats. Now all I have to is actually go dancing. Maybe one day I'll progress to this style:



I'd like to put pockets in my next pair. I was thinking of unpicking the right side and adding an inseam pocket, but it might be too close-fitting to make that work well. We'll see. The Sutton Foster trousers make me think that front hip pockets might also be really cute (especially if edged like hers).

These trousers also complete my second sewing dare^*. So yay for me. Less yay is the fact that I didn't notice that the fabric was 60" instead of 45", so now I have too much left over. This is not helping me reduce my stash! It might even be enough for a second pair...

Well, if I gotta, I gotta.

^*The first being my still-to-be-blogged Jalie jeans which have been photographed and everything and I wear the hell out of them, but the button fell out before I could blog them and I haven't gotten around to fixing that yet. I have a lot of draft posts from July and August in the hopper. Any day now.