Such Treasures

This post has been updated and severely edited by me. If you are interested in That Waistband and you think you’ve read this post already, you’ll want to read it again, as my conclusions are completely different. If you’re reading this for the first time, then you’re probably better off.

You’re all wonderful to offer me suggestions on my waistband trouble with the pants I’m copying (here and here).

I figured I should plunge ahead and try to learn something new. Besides, I just love seam ripping.
So I tore out that straight waistband and attempted to create a contoured waistband to use instead. Only what I created really was a facing, so when I put it in as a waistband… duh, it didn’t work. I thought it did for awhile (and even wrote about it here in this post, but I’ve had to come back and delete that to admit my stupidity). When I tried the pants on again, I could feel that an upside down facing masquerading as a waistband is extremely binding and uncomfortable.

I’m learning something about myself through this and I hope you’ll see more humor in it than I do. It is that I am an impossible optimist. I want so much for things to work out that I generally do believe the best of everything for a good long while. I wanted to believe the best about that facing parading around as a waistband. Until the pants felt so uncomfortable that I couldn’t ignore the problem anymore.

So I tore out the pseudo-contoured waistband and put half of it back in as a facing. That felt much better during the try-on. Only the crotch height is too shallow because the pattern as written requires a waistband to achieve proper crotch height. I did expect that.

Currently I’m continuing with the facing-as-waistband plan. I do think I’ll like it. Have you noticed how these pants are getting simpler and simpler? That’s something else about me. If it is simpler, I tend to like it more. Not only because the work involved is less (in the long-run anyway, not while I’m figuring things out), but because I just like it that way. Smooth and clean, very functional.

Since learning all these clarifying items about myself and the pants, I’ve edited the pattern to increase the crotch height by the amount of the missing waistband — 1-5/8″. Another test is in order.

But I’m too tired to do more. Jeff isn’t home yet. He works for the power company and we’re having storms, so he’s working through the night out in the field with the crew. He’s not part of the crew, but during outages he gets to do fun stuff with them like flagging, replacing poles, locating downed wires, and staying up all night. I hope he gets home soon.