You were warned.

Holyfukkenshityouguys!! I made some pants! And they fit!!! Fuck yea!

I’m sure to the more experienced sewists out there – big deal, its pants, whatever. But I thought I’d never-ever-never make pants. They seemed too daunting of a commitment to tackle.

I should have known better before making such a statement and letting it take up residence in my brain – because Deer and Doe released a pants pattern.

The Safran pants are high-waisted skinny jeans. I’ve been wanting such a pair of pants for a while now and recently discovered my fave RTW skinny jeans are no longer for sale. Enter Safran.

Making these pants seemed predestined by the Fates and so, being the mortal that I am,  I obeyed.

It’s a fairly easy pattern to sew but it does take some time to do properly. I highly suggest creating a test pair first to get the fit right. Deer and Doe is dedicating September to Safran on their blog with pertinent details, so I’m not getting into picking the right materials and supplies, just chronicling my own Safran journey.

For my test pair, I chose this super soft denim jersey knit. Initially I was afraid it would be too thin of a fabric, but it’s just dreamy – a very soft, drapey, stretchy knit with just enough body to make me feel like I don’t have to cover my butt. (leggings aren’t pants, sorry/not sorry)
I cut everything at a size 38. The pockets are easier to make than regular welts and the zipper was so much easier than I feared (except for when my zipper pull came off at the very end of installation, which I could NOT get back on, and my much calmer husband had to step in to fix it).
There were a few minor fit issues for me. Most glaringly, the pants were 2.5″ too long and bagged at the knees. I resolved this by cutting the bottoms short and tapering the pants from the knees down. While this worked fine, next time I will preemptively shorten the pants at one of the designated lengthen/shorten lines. This should also fix the baggy knees.
I made the changes before top stitching the outer leg and crotch seams. Once the pants fit to my liking, I went back and top stitched with the requisite amount of patience.
The waistband is also about 1″ too big, which might fix itself when I make the pants shorter, but I intend to grade the pattern down a size from the hip up to the waistband. The only thing I’m unsure of is the overall rise – I think it’s too high on me but I need to wear my test pair around some more before determining that.
Oh, and I didn’t use any fusible knit interfacing for this, just another piece of the self fabric sandwiched between the inner and outer waistband. DON’T DO THIS. Buy the damn interfacing. I mean, it worked, but my seams are bulky and they gave Eugenia one helluva time when it came to top stitching.
Overall, its a great pattern and I had a blast making it. I already have fabric for the next/ “real” pair.

Cheers!

UPDATE:

Pants No.2 are finished! I took in the waist per D&D’s blog instructions on reducing swayback, which turned out great! I shortened the legs by 2.5″ using the lower lengthen/shorten line. It didn’t really fix the baggy knees, but rather moved the location of the bagginess up a bit, so I still had to take them in.