November 15, 2016

Stretch Twill fabric

pants The Clover pants are a great wardrobe staple. While you can make them up in some great basic colors such as navy, black and khaki, think of all the fun colors for fall!

Fabric drape

Since these are very fitted pants you’ll need a medium weight fabric with a slightly stiff drape. Stay away from fabric you’d use for making a shirt as that’ll be too light. If you use a heavy weight fabric, you need to make sure you cut away much of the seam allowance to keep the bulk at a minimum.

If you have a fabric you think might work, try draping it around your legs to see if it will work for fitted pants. Ask yourself these questions:

Will this fabric wrinkle too much? Fabrics that are too light will tend to show every bend in your leg, whereas stiffer fabrics will maintain their shape better.
Will it show my undies? Again, thinner fabrics will show every line underneath.
Does it look like leggings? We find this a good question to ask yourself with these pants. If the fabric is too drapey, these fitted pants will look more like leggings than trousers.

If you have a fabric that you love but seems a little too light or drapey, you can even try underlining them with a stiffer fabric! Sarai is going to share how she’s using this technique for a pair she’s sewing for the Fall Palette Challenge.

Stretch

This pattern calls for fabric with 1-3% lycra (AKA spandex). This isn’t because the pants have negative ease (i.e. smaller than your body measurements). It’s because they are very fitted, and the little bit of stretch makes them more comfortable, especially when bending the knee. So just a teeny bit of stretch will make a big difference in comfort.

When choosing fabric with stretch, check the label, you generally don’t want more than 5% lycra or you risk the “leggings look.”

Types of fabric

There are so many types of fabric that work for this pattern: corduroy, wool gabardine, wool blends, stretch cotton twill, cotton sateen, silk dupioni and lightweight denim. Oh, did you see that? I said lightweight denim. That’s because denim is usually pretty thick. Choose something light with stretch if you go the denim route.