After discovering last week that the coveted pants from Burda July 2010 were not meant to be, I pulled out my entire Burda collection and started sifting through for other flowy pant patterns, but nothing was really to my liking. And then the day before yesterday for no reason, a phrase popped into my head:

“Pants with a bow!”

It kind of stuck in my head and I said it over and over to myself, “pantswithabowpantswithabowpantswithabow…” I’m not sure if this is inspiration or mental deterioration at play, but suffice it to say I became quite fixed on the idea of “pants with a bow.” I drafted them mentally on the way to work yesterday morning, and then on paper yesterday evening (using my pant sloper), and finished off the evening by sewing them up zippy quick. Here’s how they turned out:

Super easy pants! (BTW, I love how a pair of pants that actually fits properly makes me feel so much less short- the inseam on these is a meager 27.5″, and I cut them to wear them with very high heels, so you can imagine how short my actual inseam is. But I look almost sort of tall-ish in these pants when no one is standing next to me!) They have a 2.5″ wide waistband, slightly flared legs, and a side zip. No pockets, no fly, no darts, no cuffs, just simple and clean! Here’s the rear view (kids, cover your eyes!)

(Incidentally, I really don’t care for how not blind my machine-stitched blind hem is compared to when I hem by hand. I almost always hem by hand, but I decided to give it another shot with the machine last night since it was getting late, and really, I might just unpick it and re-hem these by hand.)

And of course, there is the bow. I realize that by adding this bow, I’m reducing the wearability of these pants (you can wear a pair of basic beige pants once a week if you want, but I don’t think you can get away with giant bow crazypants quite as often), but I wanted them. With a bow. And I didn’t want some cop-out detachable bow either. I wanted the bow engineered into the pants. I just made two long tapered sashes which are sort of “inserted” into the waistband about an inch away from the side zip.

Actually, I slashed the outer waistband and inserted the sash so that there are no exposed ends. If anyone is interested, I can show you how to draft the pattern for this- it’s very simple. When the sashes are tied into a bow, it mostly hides the side closure, which is nice.

The fabric is some drapey stone beige wool that I’ve had in my stash for a long time. It’s smooth and kind of spongey and it might be wool crepe, but I don’t really recognize the weave. I think I bought it to make some basic pants a while ago, then wasn’t interested in making beige pants anymore. Recently I pulled it out again and earmarked it for the Vogue 1183 Kay Unger dress, but upon holding it up to myself in the mirror, I realized that the cool beige color does not belong anywhere near my face.

Anyway, that’s it. Some new quick-to-draft and quick-to-sew crazypants for the Selfish Seamstress. Pants with a bow! Pants with a bow! Pants with a bow!