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Colette Juniper trousers

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So, uh, yeah, when I saw the new Colette offerings I just about screamed. I don’t always love the Colette designs. Some don’t appeal to me although I can appreciate the quality and style of the patterns. But these two new patterns, the Juniper pants and the Anise jacket, are to die for.

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I own the Clover pattern but I was worried about the crotch not fitting me well because the shape looked so foreign compared to other patterns I’ve used. I haven’t made those pants yet.

These Juniper pants are wide leg with deep, slash pockets and a front fly. I bought the download PDF three days ago, printed it out two days ago and muslined it and finished the final version yesterday.

I should say right off the bat that other than the pockets I changed nothing about this pattern. That’s how well it fit right away!

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty…

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The Goal: I don’t have any pants. Ok, that’s an exaggeration. I don’t have any pants that fit. I’ve thrown out all but three pairs of jeans. One is made of some nasty synthetic that itches if I wear it for more than an hour. I only keep them because they’re black. The other is wide leg, flare that is supposed to be high waist-ed but it’s too big and now it’s more like a mid rise. The third are skinnies that I can pull on and off without unzipping/buttoning. Yeah. That ain’t working. No pants is ok for summer but occasionally the temp goes below 85 degrees and I’d like some pants. Need new pants STAT.

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(darn, I realized I only took two back photos. trust me, even though it looks like there are diagonal lines going down the back, that’s just the way i was standing. the fit in the bum looks really good!)

The Pattern: The new Juniper. I cut a size 4. As for the PDF versus the printed paper pattern, here are my thoughts. Instruction layout is good. All the necessary bits are there just like in the paper pattern booklet.

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The pattern pieces were good but my printer would cut off the very top and very bottom of each page which made it hard to match up (which may have made my pant legs ever so slightly wider or narrower when I taped the pieces together). Every printer is different so you may not necessarily have that problem. But because of that issue I didn’t like that the test square was spread across four pages. If my printer couldn’t print all the lines it makes it hard to tell if the test square is the right size.

It’s about 30 pages total just for the pattern pieces. The total document is 59 pages long.

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The Fabric: Some plain 100% cotton denim from Joann(no stretch, all my past pants made from stretch fabrics have stretched out way too much. I wanted to try no-stretch this time. I might have picked a denim that’s too thick, the waistband gets bulky at the front. Pockets were leftover cotton voile.

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The Changes: I made a muslin first for these puppies in which I changed the back crotch curve. When I tried it on I discovered it was a little tight so I went back to the original pattern line. Worked just fine. In the muslin I narrowed the back inner edge just slightly because these wide leg pants are really wide but I nixed that idea in the final version, also turned out fine. Seems like I didn’t need to make a muslin after all!

I hemmed them to wear with flats but made a big hem in case I want to let them out later. The basic inseam is long to allow you to hem as much as you need. I cut off about 4

So basically, these things fit just right straight out of the box. Sweet!

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I did change the pocket openings to a scallop shape and angled them farther down the side of the leg. It was pretty easy, I just altered the pocket pattern pieces and the front two pieces by tracing my magnetic pincushion to create scallops.

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The Results: This is a really nice pattern and would be easy to make lots of aesthetic changes. I like the wide leg look. I think because my legs are so much narrower compared to my hips these trousers look extra wide on me. It would be easy for me to get nit-picky about the leg fit but I’m probably the only one who would ever really notice. Next time I might lengthen the front crotch curve ever so slightly but it’s not that big of a deal. I’m so glad I have a pair of pants now that feels snug in the waist and hips and not saggy! I feel like I need a choir of angels behind me singing “hallelujah!”

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