If I take anything away from COVID-19 disaster, well, you know, apart from the fact that the incessant greed of mass capitalism has rendered governments around the world unwilling and incapable of taking basic steps to protect their populations, it’s that I want to dress comfortably.

Working from home, chasing an energetic 5 year old around and trying to provide something of a ‘education’ for him, plenty of cooking, drinking too much wine for solace and the occasional spot of sewing – that’s pretty much all I’ve had to dress for for weeks on end now.

And I’ve been gravitating towards sewing clothing which accounts for this new reality.

Which is not to say that I’ve found most of my regular wardrobe useless in this regard.

A lot of my regular wardrobe has been pretty appropriate and I’ve definitely been wearing plenty of me-mades. But while life is limited to home, I’ve been noticing a few things about my wardrobe choices. First, it is not worth touching garments made out of fabrics with speciality cleaning requirements – silk and wool, I’m looking at you! Second, any fabric that is even a little bit scratchy or irritating its OUT! Third, anything with a structured waist band has my rapidly softening and expanding core contracting with horror – you know, to the extent that it still can.

And, after noticing how I constantly wanted to reach for either my existing pairs of Pietra Pants (version 1 or 2) or a pair of RTW elastic waisted culottes, I decided that, well, I simply needed more elastic in my life at these challenging times.

That’s a phrase I never really thought I would need to use!

Miller Trousers by Paper Theory

It’s definitely no secret that I’m a fan girl of Paper Theory.

I find Tara’s patterns to be simple but interesting, modern and minimalist and well drafted. I’ve sewn them all so far: the sewist’s darling Zadie Jumpsuit (hell I loved this one so much, I even tried to create my own version before it was released), the LB pullover, the Kabuki tee, the Olya Shirt Dress.

The only one that remained for me to try was their latest release from last year, the Miller Trousers. The Miller trousers are a relaxed fit elastic waisted trouser with front pleats and pockets. A tie-waist version is also available.

I picked the elastic waist option because I’m pretty firm in my newly-found conviction that, when the end of the world comes, I want to face it with equal parts rage, frustration and resignation, with my waist ensconced in elastic.

My Miller trousers are a size 16, straight out of the envelope (or off the PDF), in heavyweight slate linen from The Fabric Store.

I love working with Paper Theory patterns because I feel as though, even when her patterns are simple, they teach me a new skill or technique. This was no exception. The slash pockets of the Miller Trousers are constructed in a really interesting (but easy!) way that I’ve never seen before which anchors the pocket to the waistband. (None of which you can actually see from the below photo, but I promise on the inside it’s nice and tucked away and anchored).

Also, it seems obvious, but I liked the tip of joining the elastic by overlapping and stitching. Despite how obvious this seemed upon seeing it in the instructions, I had generally been joining my elastic by sewing together as if it were a seam and folding my ends out, which ends up being much bulkier.

Not only were the Miller Trousers really easy to put together, with immaculate instructions, but, guys, there are ONLY THREE PATTERN PIECES! There is not separate waistband piece – the waist is created by folding down the top of the leg pieces.

All of which means that the Miller Trousers come together super fast. You can have a new pair of pants in an evening.

I think these may now become a go-to, SewJo fix project for me. When I need a quick win, I’ll make a pair of Miller Trousers. I definitely have some more fabric in my stash that I could see finding their destiny as Miller Trousers.

These are definitely the most comfy pants I own and there will be more in my life. I simply can’t imagine a garment which better encapsulates what I’m finding comforting right now than these linen Miller trousers!

• 

• 

• 

A couple of pairs of Pietra Pants

But that’s not all, I’ve also made another couple of pairs of Pietra Pants by Closet Case Patterns.

Smooth at the front, but all elastic at the back, the Pietra Pants definitely fit my sewcial isolation comfort requirements too.

• 

• 

These are the 4th and 5th times, respectively, that I’ve sewn this pattern. These are also in heavyweight linen from The Fabric Store, this time in ochre and deep teal.

I continue to really like the Pietra Pants pattern. Obviously, since I’ve returned to it so much.

It’s as though the Pietra Pants are the princess seamed bodice of pants – the shape is all built into the cut. And yes, it is a more involved project than something like the Miller Trousers but once you have your pieces cut out there are no darts or pleats to mess around with so it’s still actually a pretty fast sew.

My Pietra Pants, like the ones I made last year are size 14, tapering to 16 at the hip. Since I’ve already blogged about this pattern twice, I’m only going to mention anything new here. You can get more info on my sewing experience with the Pietra Pants in my earlier posts: my first pair of Pietra Pants and then the redux.

Here, in the Pietra Pants tapered leg, view B, I’ve finally managed to extend the length to a proper full length. View B is designed to be cropped and, well, it’s really cropped. It looks cute standing up but, on me, when I sit down, it comes up to half way up my calf and looks just ridiculous!

By blue tercel Pietra Pants was the first time I’d made cropped length pants and, until these pants, I’d never really been aware of the creeping-up-towards-your-knee danger of the cropped pant. Well, I’ve now been schooled. Cropped pants are only good for days when you won’t sit down – kind of the opposite of a high heeled shoe!

My beige pair of Pietra Pants is 1.5 inches longer than the pattern is drafted. It’s an improvement but still not quite there, again, especially when I sit. Oh the cold ankles!! (Albeit, better than cold calves…)

But this time, I feel like I’ve gotten it right, lengthwise. These new deep teal Pietra Pants are 4.5 inches longer than the original pattern and I feel that it is an ideal length, as a full-length pant, for me.

And that’s saying something, since I feel that I have a special talent for slightly messing up the length of pants!

Speaking of which, let’s move to the ochre pair, which are still probably slightly too long and that I will eventually have to slightly shorten!

This was the first time I’ve tried the wide legged view A of the Pietra Pants. I really like the shape of this version too and can probably see myself coming back for me one day.

• 

• 

• 

Hell, it seems I’m liking all the views of the Pietra Pants so much, I might even need to make the shorts one day!

And yes, the pockets on the Pietra Pants are still somehow my favourite pockets ever!

Elastic dreams….

My one little tip for making the elastic waisted pants of your dreams is to put in your elastic and then wear it around for a day or so before you actually commit to the elastic length and sew it all in.

Don’t close that waistband and topstitch until you’ve really given them a proper whirl.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it so easy to test the fit of the elastic, decide, yep that feels perfectly and finish everything off, only to find, after a day or so, that maybe it was less perfect than my 30 second try-on revealed.

Also, different elastic is going to feel and relax differently over the course of a day.

Sometimes it’s too tight. More often for me, it’s too loose and slips around to the hips. My deep teal pair above are probably slightly too loose but I can’t contemplate unpicking the topstitching and shortening the elastic.

• 

• 

I really love the revelation from the Pietra Pants of how much better elastic looks when it is topstitched down. In fact, I plan to add top stitiching to the elastic of my Miller Trousers but I don’t have the matching thread colour available right now.

But, the downside is that, if you discover you were slightly off in your elastic length, it’s a real slog to undo all of that and fix it up.

So wear it around for a bit first before you commit. Especially if you’re stuck at home, who’s going to see?

In other words, do what I say, not what my impatient self actually did – as evidenced by my still slightly too big around the waist teal pair!

OK, so I guess that’s pretty much it for this elastic extravaganza. I’ve been wearing all three of these constantly.

The smooth breathable comfort of quality linen against my skin. The pressure-free support of elastic. The feeling that I haven’t completing let myself go (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). These pants bring me comfort, especially if I wear them while binge-eating chocolate and watching RuPaul’s Drag Race.

There is every chance this might lead to a more wholistic embracing of elastic on my wardrobe. Perhaps the new test for practicality and wearability will become “can I wear this both to work and in social isolation?”

For now, both the Miller Trousers and Pietra Pants pass this test with flying colours…

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.