I Sewed This Weekend!

I sewed this weekend. Actually, I serged this weekend. I made these really quick pants to try my hand at making a knock off. For some reason in all my years of sewing, I have never tried to copy a RTW garment. While my wool trousers are en route to me, I decided to start with something uncomplicated to get the hang of it. These pants are made of two rectangles with U shapes cut out of the top side of each rectangle. The pieces are perfectly symmetrical. I thought about customizing the U to my exact crotch curve, but since the exercise was to perform a knock off, I copied the pants exactly. Here is what the pattern looks like. I cut two pieces - one for each leg. They have no side seams. The sides are overlapped and worn open, wrap style. There are no buttons or zippers. The pants are tied on in front and in back. The pants I copied had self ties. I used some ribbon I had on hand instead of self ties. The ribbon does double duty as a waist facing to stabilize the waist in front and in back. I cut extra to hang free on each side of both the front and back waist edges for the ties. First, I serged the two legs right sides together at the U shape. I used stay tape to keep the crotch from stretching out of shape since my fashion fabric contains Lycra. next, I overcasted and trimmed the selvages from the side edges. Then, I overcasted the bottom edges, attaching a fusible stabilizer tape with the fusible side out on the reverse side. The next step was attaching the ribbons to the public side of the front and back waist. Once all the overcasting was done, I set my serger for cover stitching. I folded the hem under and pressed to fuse using a Teflon press cloth. Then I used a wide cover stitch to finish the bottom edges. I cover stitched the side edges next, turning under as I serged. The final step was turning the ribbon to the inside and running two rows of cover stitch at the front and back waist. Done! Easy Peasy!