Sewing Fly Front Pants -- Love 'Em or Hate 'Em?

I realized that, over my many years of sewing, I haven't made very many fly front pants.  I don't think it's because I hate them, though.  I hadn't given them enough consideration to feel one way or another about them.

Burda 9860

For boys' pants, I've used  Kwik Sew 3399 to make a pair of trousers for my oldest son.  And I used Burda 9860 right around the same time, about 2006. Sadly, the pictures of these are lost, but the links go to the reviews I wrote for them on PatternReview.com.  The Kwik Sew instructions were excellent and I recall referring back to them when I made the Burda pants.  Logical, since Burdas are famous for their rather, um, sparse, instructions. And it was good that I had those Kwik Sew instructions.  Because without them, I probably ouldn't have realized that the Burda pattern had mysteriously omitted the pattern piece for the zipper shield.

Kwik Sew 3399

 I pulled out that Kwik Sew pattern again, and reread the instructions for installing the fly zipper.  They were just as easy as I remembered them to be.  I didn't have any trouble installing it, and these were my very first ones.  Many people have applauded Kwik Sew's instructions, and I think the reputation is well-deserved.

I've only sewn one pair of Men's fly front pants.  It was a Vogue pattern and I truly did hate that pattern.  All the lines seemed to be off somehow, and nothing about it looked right.  It was years ago and so I doubt that pattern is in print anymore.  And I don't remember it's number, anyway.  But absolutely nothing about the fly front sticks in my mind, so I'm going to assume that there was at least  nothing wrong with it.






Women's fly fronts, now that's a little bit of a different story.  My first women's fly front pants were made from a now out-of-print Kwik Sew pattern way back in 2006.  The pictures of these were also lost but you can read the review of the pattern on PatternReview.com if you're interested. 

More recently, I just made Jalie 2908 Stretch Jeans for the Mini Wardrobe contest on Pattern Review.  Jalie's fly front instructions are a little different from Kwik Sew's.  I remember while I was making them that the instructions seemed ever-so-slightly more complicated, but I found that I really liked the technique.  And the fly didn't stand open when I sat down, which I really liked.  To me, it had just one flaw:  the zipper teeth seemed to be positioned way closer to center front than in RTW.  So there's not much more than a quarter inch of fabric covering the teeth, and I didn't like that.  This may not be the pattern.  As I said, I haven't done that many fly fronts, so it might be operator error.  But I like the way RTW conceals the zipper way underneath the outside fly cover.  I resolved to figure out how to do that.  I figured it couldn't possibly be that hard.

Fast forward a couple of weeks.  This morning it was 12F degrees in our little corner of the world.  Brrrrr.  I decided it was a good day to pull out my wool melton trousers.

It wasn't until I had been wearing them half the day that I realized it had just what I was looking for in a fly front.  I was astonished.  Going back to read the original review, I saw that apparently I wasn't impressed with the instructions for the fly front, but I gotta tell ya, I am definitely impressed with the results.  The pattern is New Look 6709, and yes, I'm sorry, it is yet another OOP.  I've been buying patterns for a looooong time.  And I think I've only thrown, given, or sold away less than a dozen in all those years.

So now that I've spent some time considering the issue, do I hate 'em or love 'em? Hmmmm.  I think I like them enough to really work out a technique that works for me.  And then I suspect I'm going to love 'em.  Because I still wear jeans most days of the week and finding my size has been getting harder lately.  Making my own will solve that problem and give me the satisfaction of making even more of my clothes than I already do.

So what about you?  Fly front pants.  Do you love 'em or hate 'em, even if you don't make 'em?

Progress on the LBD -- Invisible Zipper

Sitting down last night to work on the LBD, I discovered, to my disgust, mind you, that I had no black 22 inch zipper.  You think I would've checked that.  But I did have a whole bunch of black invisible zippers that I picked up probably because they were on sale.  And I have the Janome concealed zipper foot, still in its package, unused, neglected, and forlorn.

So, I put a concealed zipper in the LBD instead of using the instructions for a centered one.  I've put in only one other concealed zipper, but lack of experience doesn't really seem to matter.  It's a snap to put in an invisible zipper -- at least it is with the concealed zipper foot.  I'm not sure why I haven't been using them for Daughter's dresses.  It seems so sensible and they really are remarkable easy.

This is a really terrible picture, but the best I could do for now, snd I really wanted to show you how nice the zipper turned out.  I'll get the dress on the dress form and take some good pictures once I've made a little more progress -- there are some fit issues that I'll need to address before this thing is even wearable.  I didn't make a muslin, so I'm not really surprised.  I was sort of hoping that this would be one of the Buttericks that fit me like a dream right out of the envelope.  No such luck.

Only two more days to go until the contest deadline, but I think I might be able to make it.  If I can make it fit nicely, I'll be happy, even if I don't get it done in time.  But I'm take my best shot and put as much time into in the next couple of days as I can.

Today, though, I'm going to the Button Box -- an accordion store about 1 1/2 hour's drive from where I live.  I love music and musical instruments, even though I don't play any of them better than mediocre, but I really love accordions.  Especially button accordions, or melodeons as they are called in other places.  Cajun, folk, traditional, polka.  All use accordions as a major part of their sound and I love it!  Will I buy one?  Maybe a used one.  But mostly I'm going to look around and enjoy music store atmosphere.

Girls' Sweetheart Neckline Dress -- Finished!

And here it is!  Done at last.  Okay, that makes it sound as if I've been working on for weeks, when in truth it's only been a few days.

Daughter chose the sweetheart neckline as the favorite of all the options available in the Butterick pattern 3350.  I used View B without the trim and gave it long sleeves.  It took some fancy pressing to get those scallops to come out just right, but I think next time round I'll be able to do a better and faster job.

The fabric is an old Kaufman print, probably from 2007 or so.  I'd been saving it up for God knows what, and I finally decided that it would be the perfect fabric for this dress.  I bit my lip, laid it out on the table, and started cutting.  Have you ever had a piece of fabric that you saved for so long that it's difficult to cut into it? 

The dress took all 2 yards and I wished I'd had a couple inches more so I could have made the dress a bit longer.  She's been putting on alot of height lately, and I wonder if it'll get too short before the bodice no longer fits.  No matter.  By then, I'm sure I'll have another fabric that is just perfect for her.

I adjusted the pattern so that I could use the centered zipper tutorial from Fashion Incubator, and I think I did a pretty good job, if not perfect.  I like Kathleen's method, but it's going to take some practice before I can do it perfectly.

All in all, the project turned out beautifully.  And Daughter is very pleased, which is the most important part, isn't it?

What Came in Yesterday's Mail

I almost never bother with zippers.  And since I hardly ever use them, I never really cared about how skillfully I put them in.  But ever since I made the girls' Butterick dresses for Daughter, I've been thinking about how much I'd like to refine my zipper installation skills.  To that end, I bought the Janome Concealed Zipper Foot to fit my Kenmore.

I also did some looking around and found some really great tutorials for installing zippers.  This one, at Kathleen Fasanella's Fashion Incubator, is by and large my favorite.  Especially since she shows how to sew the facing down without any pesky hand-stitching.

She also has info on centered zippers, lapped zippers, and zippered welt pockets.  I've had her centered zippered tutorial printed out and living on my bookshelf for years now, and if I'd had the brains God gave little green apples, I would have pulled it out when making Daughter's dresses.  Maybe then the zippers would have turned out a bit better.  You know, like maybe you wouldn't be able to see them and all.  Like it's supposed to look.

But no matter.  Because I now have my Zipper Foot.  And, like magic, that's going to make everything better.  And I do have a bunch of invisible zippers that I got in a zipper bundle from FabricMart a couple of years ago.  Those lime green ones will make great practice zippers.  :o)  I mean, seriously, can you see me in lime green?

Besides, that's not all that came in yesterday's mail.  I also bought 50 spare clear plastic bobbins for my Kenmores.  Do I need 50 spares?  Ha!  Does a duck need water?

I'm gonna go wind some bobbins now...