Marcy Tilton's Pants Pattern - Vogue 8499

I fell in love with Marcy's pattern – loose fitting pants, an interesting cut and lots of room for my own interpretation. After all that is what I love about sewing. Take something, get creative with the fabric, change the pattern, and I end up with a distinctive garment. As an opportunist when it comes to matching fabrics and patterns, I often find myself in the drapery/upholstery section of a fabric shop before I find what I want. And so it was for this pattern. I found a linen in a spring green print on a natural background that I felt would be great for this pattern. It has a great weight and a very nice hand. Marcy’s pant is created out of four sections- two in front and two in the back. There is an interesting pocket configuration on each front side. As I looked at the pattern, I realized that if I put contrasting cording down the front seam that it would extend the line and make the pants look less like pantaloons. And the contrasting cording had to be the solid green. Marcy’s website had the perfect linen blend in the spring green. I then found some nice thin strip that would do well as accent – hello, top of the pocket and trim for the pant legs. As I am tall, I can get away with a cuff look on my pants.

Next problem – what do I use for cording. Everything I found at the store was too stiff and was going to make a hard line. As the linen is soft, I wanted to keep the line soft. As I prowled around the house, I found some green garden jute. As this was made for outdoor use, I figured it was already colorfast and preshrunk – but I tested it anyway to confirm. The garden jute worked perfectly creating a nice cord that looks soft, but still produces the definition I wanted down the front of the pants.

And here are the cuffs.

And now I off to make a vest to go with my new pants. It's a Kwik Sew pattern and I am using the same idea of cording, contrasting fabric.