tutorial: fun with clovers - part one

many moons ago, when i was just a young buck, in the days before i knew of such things as "red jackets" and "couture techniques", when life was, dare i say, a bit more innocent...

i had a vision. a vision that one day i would bring my knowledge to this blog and share it with all who wished to share it with me. that we might learn together. is this a utopian ideal?

no. this is sewing with sallie.

thats right! i am pleased to introduce my first ever official tutorial (besides the tutorial i scribbled on a random napkin as an afterthought one day. that one doesn't count)

in the back of my brain, in between red jacket madness, job changes, christmas and the like, i've been rolling around the idea to share how i made my changes to the colette clover pants pattern.

in case you missed it, i blogged about these pants (and shirt) here. i love taking a great, versatile pattern, like clover, and finding a way to make it my own. i already feel like this pattern will have future iterations - but for now, i'd like to show you how i took the clover pattern, a simple, elegant, slim fitting, side zip pant, and gave them a more masculine edge with some trouser details. i will be splitting these tutorials into as many posts as it takes - for my own sanity. i'm thinking right now it will take about 4.

in these tutorials, i will show you how to:

• draft and sew a front zip fly
• draft and sew side pockets
• convert the clover waistband to a button/tab closure at center front

the pants i made above also have single welt pockets on the rear, however i won't be showing you how to do that in my tutorial since i think there are already a lot of great tutorials lurking around the internet on how to do that. like this one. or this one.

so lets begin, shall we?

materials you will need:

• your clover pattern with all fitting adjustments made
• tracing paper - or whatever pattern paper you fancy
• pen/pencil/marker
• ruler
• french curve, or your eyeballs

now if you are anything like me, by the time you managed to get your clovers to fit you satisfactorily, your pattern may look a little something like this:

kinda gnarly. so the first step will be to:

1. trace your adjusted clover pants pattern onto a clean piece of tracing paper, transferring all marks, grainlines, etc. since we are only making adjustments to the front pattern piece you can just trace that if you prefer.

2. to draft the front fly, begin by drawing a straight horizontal line from the circle on the hip over to the CF (center front) crotch. label the point where your line and CF meet point A.

3. working from the sewing line - not the outside of the seam allowance - extend the top edge from the CF to the right by 2 inches. label this point B.

4. make a mark 1 1/4 inches to the left of your CF seam. label this point C.

5. draw a vertical line from point B down to point A, curving your line toward CF about an inch above A. use a french curve to help you if you are uncomfortable eyeballing the curve. the length of this line will vary depending on the length of your crotch depth/front rise.

6. draw a line from point C to point A - mirroring the curve of line B - A. As you can see from my example, I didn't quite like the angle of my first line, and so changed it to be more parallel to the angle of my CF line. To be perfectly honest, it doesn't really matter - but for accuracy sake its nice for those two lines to be parallel. I also attempted to mask out my seam allowance line because I was finding it distracting. As you can see... it didn't do much.

7. draw a dashed line 1/4" to the right of line C - A. this will mark where you will be topstitching (should you choose to topstitch).

8. mark a point 1/2 inch above where line A intersects the CF seam.

9. make a note to "baste" from the top of your pants on the CF seam to your dot you just marked.

10. to draft your pants right fly extension (don't worry about what this is at this point - all will be revealed in good time!) you will need to find a clean piece of paper. draw a line approximately 4 1/2 inches long.

11. measure out to the right of this line 2 3/4 inches. draw a line.

12. square a line down from this line - extending it approximately 5 1/2 inches.

13. connect the two parallel lines along the bottom with a gently curved line. use your french curve for guidance if you don't feel comfortable eyeballing.

14. make a note on the left hand side of this piece (the shorter side) to "cut on fold". you will only need to cut one of these pieces. no need to add seam allowances.

*note* the measurements for this piece were based off of my own clover pattern - if your front rise is significantly longer than mine your right fly extension piece may need to be longer. please check the length of the fly you drafted onto your front clover pattern and make any changes to your right fly extension piece accordingly. (the short side of the right fly extension should be about 1/2 inch longer than the length of your fly)

congratulations! you just drafted a zip front fly! not too hard, huh? before you finish - extend those seam allowances along the top of your clover front pattern to meet up with your new fly front.

in the next post i'll show you how to draft some pockets and make changes to your clover waistband to accommodate your new zip fly.

feel free to leave any questions you may have in the comments and i'll try and answer them as best i can. and yay for fun with clovers!!!

xx