Toile Diary

Firstly I started off my trouser by tracing out a basic trouser block. I then adapted my pattern to fit into my design.

I made the waist higher, and made the trousers angle out at the hips like on my design. I also lowered the crotch and tightened the legs and the bottom.

I also drew out where the panels were going to be on y trousers as well. The next step for me was to trace off the separate panels and add seam allowances where necessary.

inside leg FRONT

 second to top piece BACK

 outside leg BACK

 inside leg piece BACK

 outside leg FRONT

top piece BACK

top piece FRONT

After I had my pattern pieces, I then proceeded to to cut them out of the calico. As my trousers are mostly made up of panels, the only piece that was cut on the fold was the top front piece. I then started to piece my trousers together like a jigsaw, I found this surprisingly easy and I followed my large pattern to see which pieces went together.

Here, I had started by sewing the top back pieces to the two second to top back pieces, making sure I had lined up the darts so that they matched. This was definitely the hardest part of making the trousers as the darts never seemed to match up perfectly.

I then did the other darts on the front with the front top piece that had been cut on the fold. I attached the piece to the 2 outside front leg pieces and then attached the inside front leg pieces to the outside pieces. Now I had the front part of my trousers complete.

I then made up the back part of my trousers by adding the top part I earlier made up to the inside and outside back leg pieces. Now I had both the back and front pieces made up and was almost ready to sew them together, although firstly I had to insert an invisible zip.

Now i had to sew up both the outer sides and insides of the trousers to make them whole.

Here is my finished toile, I took close ups so the panels could be seen. After trying then on, I realized that they would have to be changed slightly as they were too big all over. So I put them on and then pinned them in place where they needed to be taken in, and took the measurements.

Rather than redoing my whole toile, I then made the amendments to my paper patterns and then started to create my final trousers. My final trousers fit perfectly with the new measurements.

I made sure that I faced the top of my trousers to neaten up the edges, and then I turned the bottoms of my trousers up 1 cm twice and hemmed them.

 Front

Back


I was very pleased with the final outcome of my trousers, as they fit how I wanted them too, and the panels lined up accurately which was at first quite hard to master. The darts didn't line up as accurately as I'd have liked but I think that might have been down to my patterning.