Saturday, September 18, 2010

The Satin Tap Pants of Death.


So I finally finished this horrible little cutie after hours of swearing, drinking, and even a broken needle or two. And what did I learn? Mike says they just look like a divided skirt. Poo.
They look just lovely laying on my desk, so neat and pretty, but when I put them on (yeah, like I'm going to post that on the internet) they look just like a skirt with a nice little lace flutter.
Here's where I went wrong: I decided that the 40's high-waisted pin up look would be silly on me so I adjusted the pattern to sit a bit above my hips instead. This was stupid. When I gather a handful of the waist and put it at my waist line where it was meant to be, not only is the silhouette lovely, but it makes my tushy look gorgeous.


I will be using this pair as a sort of half slip under skirts as I intended, and will definitely be making a pair as the original pattern intended. In silk, rather than satin, though. The satin was a nightmare to work with. I was supposed to put a buttonhole at the waist but the double fold bias tape end was so thick that I promptly bent a needle. Instead I put one buttonhole lower down and used some satin cord to make a loop for the button above. Here's where I got tacky. I only had white satin cord, so I darkened it with magic marker. Gauche, I know, but it worked.


This was also my first time edging anything with lace and the pattern had a very helpful explanation of how to do that, which I have shared below.

I spent an arm and a leg just for a meter of satin bias tape and 2 meters of plain stretch lace ($30!) so if anyone knows where to get some nice notions and lace online, I'd like to know. This started as a money saving endeavor and now it's just turning into a frustrating compulsion. I've spent just under $50 including the pattern and I just found something a bit similar on etsy for $25. Sigh.

4 comments:

  1. Well done you for sticking with it! Satin is a pig to work with. Do you have your own bias binding making gadget? They are so simple to use and you really DO save money here! Using a vintage pattern as opposed to a modern one is quite a learning curve. I enjoyed reading of your endeavour!

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  2. Hi! Thanks for the detailed step-by step. About the strecht lace....try etsy.com? I'm not sure about the satin bias tape but just type that in the main etsy search engine and see what comes up! I'm thinking about buying this pattern so let me know if you recommend a different pattern! I think the tap pants look adorable!!

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  3. Adore These - Thanks for the step by step

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  4. i think they look good. i always find leftover notions at thrift stores, usually they group them in bags in the back somewhere. i want to try making a poly-rayon-velvet tap pants similar to the ones u made, (mainly because i can't find anything even close to what i want in the stores...but i haven't sewn in YEARS) so i appreciate this post very much.

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