I have made myself many True Bias Hudson pants (tee hee, pants) now.
I don’t even know how many. Let’s see.
1. mock denim jegging fabric one (a bit tight in the legs but loose in the waist because I don’t know, but I still wear it)
2. green fleece (a bit tight because of fabric, but I still wear it)
3. light grey cotton-lycra (worn to fabric fraying death)
4. spotty blue fleece maternity ones (waist too loose but man, I love these)
5/6. maybe another one or two maternity ones that I’ve since given away
I think I have blogged about a grand total of: None.
You would think I would consider it a TNT, but I don’t, because each of the fabrics I have used have been so different, that the fit is different without any changes to the pattern or size.
These are my modifications to the pattern:
– I don’t bother with the drawstring. I don’t like drawstrings; they’re fiddly. I don’t like fiddly.
– I find the length of the ankle cuff too long, so I shortened it to about half width but compensated by lengthening the trouser legs themselves. Lengthening the legs of a pattern. Now that was a first for me!
– The pockets were too small. A greater tragedy than no pockets is pockets that are too small. I increased the pocket size, by simply slicing the pocket in half, lengthening to fit my whole hand with plenty of wiggle room, and then – I don’t know – trued up the pattern lines.
– For maternity versions, I did a yoga waist band. I love my blue spotty ones and I still wear it, despite no longer sporting a bump, but I need to replace the waistband as it is too big. Yeah. One day.
– For future ones:
— I might need to widen the calf or just use the legs from the men’s.
— I should increase the waistband by 2 inches to add length and comfort over the tummy area.
I like the design and the fact that it is such a wardrobe staple (everyone needs trackydaks!) that when True Bias released the Men’s Hudsons and the Mini Hudsons, of course I bought them straight away.
I have made my partner Jedediah trousers twice, but no trackydaks, because he has a pair that he doesn’t really wear much. He’s had it for at least 10 years. For a while, I figured he probably just wasn’t into trackydaks. But then I thought, maybe that pair just wasn’t right for him? Look, maybe I could have asked him but that seemed like expending effort and I was much more engaged with pondering and dithering. I decided he needed at least another pair of trackydaks, so I went online and bought fleece fabric and made him a pair. I haven’t taken a photo of the first pair of Hudsons that I made for my partner because they are dark navy fleece and BORING. They actually look great on him and he likes them, but I die of boredom just thinking about photographing them.
I bought 3 metres of the boring navy fleece fabric and managed to make myself a pair of Paprika Patterns Ruby Joggers, which are too big (why didn’t I make myself Hudsons? I don’t know.) and from the left overs, made my Babe 2 pairs. As she is growing like a mushroom, she has already grown out of one pair, mainly because I hemmed instead of cuffing it, without increasing the length of the trouser leg because I’m lazy, so the hemmed pair has been gifted away to a younger child.
While buying the fleece fabric, I happened upon polar fleece fabric with foxes on it. It was a clearance price of a pittance per metre, so I bought loads. I am trying not to buy fabric without a plan. This was a huge fail, but you know FOXES. I think maybe I thought perhaps I could make myself and Babe jumpers out of the fabric. Why I thought I needed 4 metres of 152cm wide fabric for jumpers, I don’t really remember, and it is probably best not to interrogate my thinking process.
Did you know 4 metres of polar fleece takes up A LOT of space?
Luckily, my Babe decided it was a blanket when it arrived, so I squared up the fabric width and cut her a blanket. Fastest blanket ever. Polar fleece doesn’t fray, so I didn’t finish the edges. In any event, she would not go to sleep that night without “MY foxy blanket,” so I was hardly going to hem it.
But that still left a bajillion metres taking up precious sewing cupboard real estate.
I decided She needed foxy fabric trackydaks, and that the only way to consume all that fabric was to implement Operation Matchy Matchy,
And so I did.
There’s still plenty of foxy fabric, so maybe I’ll make her more Hudsons in larger sizes.
The fabric isn’t great; it’s pilling already after only a few wears. But they’re warm, and it makes me laugh to wear them, and my Babe loves it when we are all wearing them together at home; we haven’t ventured out in public in them yet… I know she won’t stand for matchy matchy at some point, but while she does, I’m going to get good mileage out of it.
Some thoughts on making mini Hudsons:
– don’t use fleece for the ankle cuffs on the smaller sizes. It is nigh on impossible to sew them in. This is why one of the earlier pairs got hemmed; I tried to sew in the cuff; I failed; I made it work with a hem … Now I use matching / contrasting stretch fabric for the cuffs, and may also do so for the waistband for comfort and fun reasons.
– pockets! My Babe loves pockets as much as I do. Hers are filled with sand. I considered not making pockets so that she could not fill them with sand, but she really likes pockets, because she really likes filling them with sand. I think I have to accept that this is my life now.
I don’t like the waistband method of leaving a gap when attaching the waistband to the main trouser part in order to feed in elastic. I used to put my elastic inside the waistband and then sew waistband with elastic together onto the trousers, but this involved a degree of finessed handling of fabrics that wasn’t very comfortable or easy. I have finally hit on a way of doing it that I like: I leave a gap when sewing the waistband short seam so that I can feed elastic into it, instead of leaving the gap when attaching the waistband to the trouser. I then do not sew the gap in the short seam closed at all. The idea is that I can switch out elastic when it stretches too much; I’ve never done that, but you never know, I might.
To do the same thing:
1. You will be sewing up the short ends of the waistband. To do this my way, means you cannot use the overlocker.
2. Mark or eyeball the middle of the short ends of the waistband.
3. Sew from one edge to about a cm after the middle.
4. Leave a gap of slightly wider than your elastic (I tend to use inch wide elastic)
5. Sew up the rest of the waistband
6. Press this short seam open
7. Fold waistband in half lengthwise and press, ready to attach it to the trouser part.
8. When attaching to trouser, ensure that the open part of the short seam will be on the inside of the pants.
Unique Schmuck 