Do you ever have those sewing projects where, the entire way through, you experience a rollercoaster of feelings, becoming convinced that this project is either going to turn out pure genius or abject disaster – with not much scope for anything in between?

The big problem is that you’re just not sure which it is: genius or disaster.

At first, at least.

But then, as you continue, you start to develop a sinking feeling that, oops, you’re perhaps heading for disaster-ville.

That slowly dawning realisation then makes you start sewing sloppy stitches of regret and, before you know it, the risk of abject disaster has become a self-fulfilling prophecy!!!!

That pretty much describes the experience of sewing these Joan Trousers from Friday Pattern Company!

Textured Ponte from Minerva

See look how happy I am about these pants in this photo!!!!

I really desperately wanted these Joan Trousers to work out. I’ve been eyeing this pattern for a while, thinking, “they look like the Persephone Pants” but in knit fabric.

What could there possibly be not to love about that?

Seriously just think about that. My favourite pants pattern ever in the comfort of a knit.

Then, when I saw this textured ridged navy knit from Minerva, I had this flash that maybe, sewn into the Joan Trousers, they would look like a pair of jumbo chord pants but feel like pyjamas.

Again, what’s not to love about that????

Disclosure: I received this fabric free of charge from Minerva, in exchange for a blog post about what I made with it. That blog post will be up on the Minerva blog sometime soon, if you want to read a bit more about the details of my pair of Joan Trousers and this unique fabric, you will be able to head over to Minerva for that.

Over here though, I’m afraid I’m going to do a little bit of a pattern rant cuz, guys, I’m afraid that for a pattern billed as “easy to make, sew in an evening”, I definitely had a few problems with this one.

Sometimes, it’s just not your sewing day!!

But before going into the details, I want to totally acknowledge that, ultimately, the root cause of my unhappiness with this project is that the fabric choice and pattern don’t work all that well together – the fabric and texture is just a bit too bulky for the Joan trousers.

And that is totally on me!

Waistband woes…

Sometimes I feel that it’s a kiss of death when a sewing pattern describes itself as quick and easy – it’s like an invitation for me to, well, mess it up!

The main area I had difficult with was the waistband. These Joan Trousers honestly had one of the most complex construction methods I have ever seen for a waistband!

Especially a knit one!!

The belt loops get basted in place to the outer waistband, before you attach the waistband facing. Then you attach the facing to create the waistband. Then you sew in a length of elastic to the facing only to give you the “treggings” elastic pull you will need to get your Joan Trousers on and off, while simultaneously staying up.

I found all of these steps very fiddly while working with a thick fabric.

Further, when attaching the belt loops first, I ended up with my belt loops being totally off centre. I’m kind of so far over this project that I haven’t gone back to the pattern pieces to check whether it’s me who misunderstood something and messed this up, so I’m just going to assume that’s most likely the case.

My bad!

The step of attaching the elastic to the facing was difficult. The instructions just say, attach elastic to beginning and end of waistband and sew to distribute stretch evenly. But, well at least in my size, a waistband is pretty long and that’s a long distance to do on ‘feel’ alone. I would highly recommend marking some quarter-way points on your waistband and elastic to help you better distribute the stretch.

Now, once the elastic is in, my waistband then looked basically something like the shape and form of an intestine. But the instruction diagrams show a perfectly straight and smooth waistband being attached to the pant legs. Which left me wondering what I had done wrong to end up with entrails.

But, eventually, I got it all attached and, well, apart from the drastically off -centre belt loops (which I am deliberately avoiding showing you in the below photo), it was, well, finished at least.

But, I have to say, I don’t feel as though the overlapped mock ‘real trouser’ waistband with the faux button actually adds much, visually speaking. I feel that this project would look basically the same and be a whole lot less fiddly, with a waistband attached ordinarily in the round, without any overlap in the front.

That’s how I will do it for my next pair. Because I do hope to work up the courage to make this pattern again and I actually already have fabric set aside for doing so (because still the idea of “Persephone Pants but in knit” continues to call my name).

The Joan Trousers to include the option of a fabric belt. As a fabric belt can hide a multitide of (belt loop) sins, I quickly made one up. But it looked horrible, given the bulk of my fabric.

A multitude of sins a fabric belt may hide, but I was pushing it too far…

That belt went straight into the scrap bin…

Other details

There were also other minor little things that, well, just bothered me a bit about this pattern.

It is drafted for a height which is taller than what is often seen in sewing patterns. The Joan trousers, you see, are designed to be worn cropped, but, for me, ponte treggings secret pyjamas is just begging for winter wear. And winter wear means full length.

On this pair, I just didn’t quite get that added length right. I added 2 inches but it was clearly not enough because I’m left with a totally weird ankle-freezing length!

I also found it a tad weird that the pattern didn’t come with the waistband pieces nested, but rather with 6 different waistbands, which is wasteful if you are paying to print at a copy shop. But I assume there must be a reason for this.

But, you know what, most of all, I think I’m kind of disappointed as this pattern, with this fabric, just doesn’t look flattering on my body. I really like the overall leg shape, but the degree of “hugging” around the hips, just reminds me of everything I hated about trying to buy RTW pants.

And I really hate using the word “unflattering” cuz what the hell does that even mean, right? But, ultimately, that is really how these pants make me feel, decidedly unflattered!

Although, I’m not going to lie, I’m sufficiently vain that I’ve avoided sharing any photos which really show just how curve hugging these Joan Trousers can be around the hips.

Now, it’s not a total write off.

These Joan Trousers are amazingly warm and comfy, which pretty much guarantees that I will actually wear them. Around the house, at least.

So, you win some, you lose some. Here I’ve gained some loungewear and a clear idea as to how to improve next time around with others!!

Hopefully, when I get the fabric choice right, the Joan Trousers will eventually become my friend!

Oh and, finally, a little P.S! If you like to get your blog hits through Bloglovin’, feel free to follow me over there: you can find me here. And you can find me on Instagram here.