Folk Sewing - Hand Sew Palazzo Pants // Wide Leg Trousers

1. Intro: In this class you are going to learn how to hand. So this beautiful pair of wide leg trousers. And when I say Hansen, I mean, truly hand sewn just your two hands, a needle and some thread. You will learn how to measure yourself, how to choose, prepare and cut your fabric, and all the hand sewing techniques required to complete this gorgeous garment. It's easy to make because you only need to cut out rectangles and it's completely constructed by hand. So no need for heavy, expensive, or hard to use machinery, just a needle, a thread on it. I wanted to work. My name is Laura lamb and I'm a folk singer and seamstress. I started designing and making clothes and toys when my baby was born and it's become a huge passion of mine. This class is suitable for total beginners or those with a little more experienced who'd like to learn my hand sewing and folk sewing techniques. Learning how to hand so connected with your ancestors and how we use to make our clothing. It's slow and meditative. Having a daily sewing practice can infuse your life with a slower pace and a mindful approach. This class is the perfect antidote to fast fashion, which encourages you to buy, buy, buy an always leaves you wanting more. When you spend hours making a garment. It makes you really appreciate the art of clothing production and you will make something that you will treasure forever. When you've learned the technique of how to make these trousers, you can make them any size from a baby to an adult with class sizes included. And there's a bonus lesson where you will learn how to add these pretty pleats to the front of your trousers. This class is the perfect foundation to learn hand sewing for me as it's part of a series of sewing classes on Skillshare where you can learn how to make other garments and toys from me. If you are looking to bring more stillness, satisfaction and patients in your life through the art of sewing than this class is for you. I'll see you in class. 2. What You Will Need: Welcome to this class. In this lesson, we are going to go over everything that you need to complete this class, how to approach learning the skill of sewing, five top tips, and how to make the most of this class. Let's get stuck in. First, let's talk about everything that we need to complete this class, you will need fabric. I recommend watching the lesson on measuring and choosing fabric before buying your fabric. In that lesson, I'll go into the specifics of what you need and help you choose the right fabric for the project. Needles, they come in different sizes. You need to find the one that's right for you through trial and error. You can get sets of needles like this which will have lots of different sizes. Thread, a good quality thread and cotton makes your work much smoother. One, tape measure for measuring yourself and your fabric. Fabric marker, Taylor's chalk or iron off pen. I personally love a heat erasable pen that you can iron your marks off when you're finished sewing. Scissors. Fabric scissors needs to be sharp. And the golden rule is to only use your fabric scissors to cut fabric. Calculator to do some basic maths for working out your Rectangle sizes. You'll need elastic for the stretch waste. Choose elastic the width. You'd like your belt to be a thimble to protect your fingers while she's sewing a notebook to handwrite your measurements and draw your cutting plan. I like handwriting and drawing in a physical notebook, but you can also use a notebook app on your device. One more thing that you might like to get is one of these on pickers. However practiced we are in sewing, however much we check and double-check. We still sometimes make mistakes and these on pickers make it much less painful to unpick your work. It's very easy to unpick. So you might like to get one of them working bag. You might like to put all your sewing things together in a little working bag. I have this small canvas bag which holds all my sewing equipment. And then I put the garment I'm working on in this bag so I can easily pick up and put down my projects. And now a little bit about approach, you will need time, space and a good attitude. First of all, we need to set aside time to work on our project. This is crucial without spending any time on it. It's not going to get anywhere. You want to find the right time that's appropriate for the right part of the project. So at the beginning when we are measuring ourselves and doing our calculations, it requires a bit more concentration. So you want to pick a time of day when you find that your at your fresher. So for me, that's first thing in the morning. After I've had my breakfast, I had a coffee fuel zingy, unable to concentrate. Then other parts of the project, the sewing, That's a more relaxing, restorative activity that you might like to schedule in the evenings. It's something I like to do. Instead of watching Netflix. I will listen to a podcast or an audio book whilst I hand. So we need space. We don't need loads of space because we're hand sewing. We don't need a desk or loads of equipment, but it's nice to make the space nice for yourselves. So it could be lighting a candle, it could be making yourself a nice herbal tea, making yourself cozy for your sewing. And finally, but very importantly, we need a good attitude learning a new skill that can be frustrating at times, we need to maintain a friendly and kind attitude as we work through this project. How you do anything is how you do everything. So make your motto, elegant efficiency. Approach your project with a growth mindset that you're going to learn something learning time so is a totally different approach to working because it takes a really long time. So I normally work on my garments little and often. So it will take around a month to make something about 30 days as opposed to the 30 s it takes to impulse buy a garment. It's inevitable that it will transform your approach to clothing and to consumption. This class is retraining yourself to be slow and to be patient when you dedicate and devote yourself to a garment like this, it will bring you so much joy when you wear it. When you wear something you've made, it just makes you shine and it feels amazing. I made this top and when I wear it, I feel so happy and so myself, five top tips. Number one, the kind and patient. When you learn a new skill, it's fiddly trying to get your hands or holding it right in it feeling right, It's fiddly. So just be really patient. And if you find yourself getting really frustrated, just put your project down for a night and come back to it the following day when you're feeling fresh. Number two, don't cut your thread too long. So we're gonna be working with a cotton and thread like this. And you don't want to work with the two long piece of thread. It can be tempting because then you don't have to keep rejoining. But the recommended amount is if you hold this wine, that backup, if you hold your thread, your chest, reach your arm out to the full length once. And then half. So one arm and a half, that is the longest you want it to be because otherwise when you pull your thread, you can pull it. So that's a very, very good tip. Don't be tempted because you think, Oh, if I just cut it really long and I won't have to keep rejoining it, but it's just part of it with hand sewing, find your own way. So when you first start handling the fabric might feel awkward. You just need to take your time to find a way that it feels good to hold it for you. It might be that you want to use pins to pin your garment together as you work. I personally don't use pins because I have a baby in the house and I just know I will drop one. It gives me too much stress. So I just hold my garment as I work, I occasionally use the other needle I'm not using. So if I'm I've got my small needle and my big needle or sometimes use my gathering needle almost as a pin just to hold a section of it because I don't want to put loads of pins and lose track of how many there are and just find one on the carpet and be extremely stressed out by that. But you might like to use pins. You might prefer to do basting, which is when you, so your two pieces of fabric together with a very loose and long running stitch so that the fabric is loosely held together whilst you work on your more neat stitches to actually fix the garment together. So we can do pins, we can do basting. And then the third one is just finding a grip so you might want to rotate the way you hold the garment so that it feels unnatural way to hold it. And this will take time and every time you change the direction of what you're working, you might want to change the way you're holding the garment. Just take your time with this and you'll figure out a way that feels good to you. Number four, think big and think small at the same time. I think this is a great metaphor for life because when we're sewing a big project like this is quite a big vision to hold all these different steps. And then what you can do is set really small goals as you go along so that you slowly make progress. So you might say tomorrow, I'm just going to measure myself and write down my measurements tomorrow. I'm just going to slow down the side seams. And when we keep making these teeny tiny goals, and then a month later, you have a beautiful government. Number five, this one is very important measure twice and cut once. This is a famous saying for a reason. Once you've cut your fabric, it's too late. So just take your time before you cut to measure, measure again, check it so that you don't make mistakes that are very, very hard to fix. A few more final notes before we get stuck in, I'm a folk seamstress and this is folks sewing. The techniques I use are self-taught or made up. So the terms I use may sometimes be made up or incorrect from the more official technical world of sewing a rose by any other name still smells sweet. Yeah, so just don't get stressed out if I'm calling a stitch something different to what you've heard it before. Who cares? Just do the thing that I'm doing on the video. Hand sewing is a great activity to approach with mindfulness and intention. You can do this to take a moment before you get sowing to think about how do I want to be in the world? I'm finding ankle word that you ponder as you so e.g. my word is elegant. So if I'm going to so elegantly, how am I going to sit? How am I going to approach any problems or frustration or something where it doesn't go quite my way. How can I be elegant in my sewing? And then I can carry that through and forward into my life. I've made two documents for you to use to help you with this class. We've got the cheat sheet and tips, which just runs through all the steps that you need to make the garment. And you can use that for your goals setting because it explains each little micro step to get your garment finished. There's also the tips typed up in there. And then we've also got the measuring and calculations document, which has all the calculations written in it. And it also walks you through step-by-step how I measured and calculated, just popping in with one more additional thought. It's worth watching this whole class through from start to finish. So you understand how the whole process works. And then once you understand it all, then start working on your garment and start working through and following it with the documents that you can download from the resources section. Now we've got everything that we need. Let's head into the next lesson where we will start measuring. 3. Measure and Calculate with Body: In this video, we will take our measurements using our body and then work out what Rectangle sizes we need to cut by making some simple calculations. This part of the garment making does require a little more concentration. So choose to do this activity at a time of day when you have a bit more energy. Let's have some coffee and go remember the golden rule to measure twice and cut once. You might like to. If you're completely new to this, you like to measure yourself once, do all the calculations, sleep on it, and do it again on another day and see if you get the same results because it's a new skill to learn. And sometimes when you first start something it can be a bit confusing. So just give it a go more than once to be really sure of your measurements. I recommend downloading the measurements and calculations document now so you can follow along with this as you watch the video and use it as a guide as you measure yourself and calculate the rectangles that you will need to cut. So let's get stuck in. These are the measurements we need to take. We need our waste. The length of our trousers, which is the measurement from our waste heart ankle, our widest hip, I'll top of thigh, and the width of our elastic. So make sure you're ready to measure yourself. And also that you've got your elastic there to measure. I've labeled each one of these a, B, C, D, E, just when we use them later for our calculations. So first of all, our waste, you can measure yourself clothed or in your underwear. Because I like to make my clothes loose fitting. I'm pretty happy to measure it in my clothes. So here I am measuring my waist. So just going around the smallest part of my waist, I like to make sure that my waist is really comfortable and not tight. So just make sure you relax your belly when you measure your waist. Then on to the length from waste to ankles. So I get the smallest number on the tape measure and I drop that right down. And then the number that's on my waist where there's little arrow is showing. That is the number I'm taking. That is the length of my trousers and then my widest hip, which is the widest part of me. Again because I don't want my things to be tight. I'd like to measure that as loose as possible. And then the most important one, the one we're actually going to use for our calculations today is our Phi. Measuring our phi, again, not tight, just how thick or Pfizer. Then onto our elastic, measuring the width of our elastic. So by the end of this, you will have this filled into your measurement of your waste. The length of the trousers, your widest hip, the top of your thigh, and your elastic width. These, this image here shows what we're going for. We want to work out what measurement these two identical pieces fabric going to cut. What's the width? What's the length? So the first one is the width. So we go back to our measurements and we take d, which is the top of the thigh. And we add 11 cm for white trousers or 35 cm for super wide. So just as a demonstration here, this indigo pair of trousers or the wide design and this gang and check pair, they are the super wide. Make a decision how wide you want your trousers and add accordingly. You might even like to pick something between those two for some medium wide trousers. And then we want to work out the length, which is pretty simple. We just take B measurement we took from our waste to ankles, which is 100 cm and we add to the seam allowance. And if you'd like to add a turnip to your trousers, then you will need 9 cm. So rather than two, you wouldn't need nine. So we've got an extra 7 cm for the turnip. So now we know the two pieces of fabric we need to cut the width. I've put the two examples here, so it will be 68 cm if it's wide, or 92 cm of its super wide and the length will be 102 cm. You might be thinking, Hang on, Laura. What about the belt? We don't measure or Belt until we've constructed our trousers together is just the easiest way to do it. Also an extra note, if you are maternity plus or plus size or making trials for a little one with a round tummy. You might like to double-check about belt calculation in advance so you know it will fit around your waist because you might need to make your trousers a bit wider to accommodate tummies. So if you are maternity plus size or making for babies, you might like to go for the super wide just so that you definitely got enough space for your tummy. If you're worried about this, go to the crotch class and complete that. And once you've got your crotch measurement, you can go download the measurement, measurements and calculations document well, you'll find a bit of info on both sides and wet belt size and waist size. Another extra note, if you're making trousers for babies or children, you might not want to add as much width as you would for an adult. So for an adult, we're adding somewhere 11-35 cm. It might be a bit less for a child or a baby. What you can do is you can get your thigh measurement, add on the width you want to add and just create a loop and hold that around your leg, around the baby or child's leg. And you'll get an idea of how wide the trousers will be. In the next class, we are going to measure and calculate using trousers. You might like to work out the size of your trousers you're going to make by using both techniques. That's something I do. I personally like to measure my body and measure my trousers and look at those two measurements and calculations alongside each other and they should be pretty much the same. So you might like to try that too. It's a really good way of double-checking. I'll see you in the next lesson. Bye. 4. Measure and Calculate with Trousers: In this video, we are going to use a favorite pair of trousers to measure. And then we are going to do some simple calculations to work out what size rectangles we need to cut. As with the other measuring video, this video does require a bit more concentration. So choose a time of day when you're feeling fresh. Make sure you've downloaded the measurement and calculation document to follow along. And remember the golden rule to measure twice and cut once. So really be confident on your results. Let's get stuck in. So these are the measurements we're going to take. We're going to take the front of length, width. And that's from the same to the scene of the front of the trousers than the length from waste to ankle. And then finally the width of the elastic. So you'll see me measuring here. I've got a pair of Bobby's read corduroy trousers. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to measure and I've got my elastic here as well. What I'm going to do is I'm going to measure from the outer seem to the inosine. So that line you see running down the outside of the trousers to the line you see running on the inside. I've noticed that these trousers tape it in a bit at the end. So I'm going to try and get the widest measurement. So I'm going up here to where the thigh would be. So that's the first measurement. And then after that we're going to do the length. So we're going to do this by going from under the belt. So skip the belt and just go from the belt all the way to the bottom of the trousers to the ankle. That's that. Then finally the elastic. So I've got a bit of a slimmer elastic for Bobby. Measure the width of the elastic. Once we've done all that measuring, we should have these three figures. A front leg width, which for this is 16 cm, then the length which is 41 cm, and then the width of the elastic, which is 2 cm. Then what we're going to do from these measurements, we're going to work out the two identical pieces of fabric that we need to cut like this. The first thing we're going to work out is the width. So working through this very slowly, as I said at the beginning of the video, do download the measurements and calculations document to support you with this. So what we're going to do a, which is the width from scene to scene. We're going to multiply it by two. Then we're going to add a two centimeter seam allowance, and then we're going to add some extra width. In this example for these Indigo trousers I'm making for Bobby a, measured at 16. So I'm going to multiply that by two, add a two centimeter me to seam allowance. And I decided on 2 cm for extra width. Just a note, I regret this and wish I'd add a bit more width because Bobby is two years old, he's growing very quickly. And it's almost like by the time I made these trials as you've grown out of them. So do consider how much extra width you want to add, especially if you're making it for children who are growing. So then the final calculation was 16 by two plus the two centimeter allowance plus the two centimeter extra width for the trousers. So my final result was 36 cm. What you might like to do once you've got this width figure, you might like to get a piece of tape like this and measure out the, the 36th centimeters and then test it around. For this example, I'm doing my leg but test it around your baby's leg to see whether this is actually a good fit with the trousers are going to be loose enough. Now for the length, which is much simpler, we simply add 2 cm for the seam allowance. If you'd like a turnip, you add 9 cm instead. So a further 7 cm to create the turnip. Once that's done, you will have your measurements for your two pieces like this. So for This example with Bobby's, the trousers are 36 cm wide. You might want to add more to make the trousers super wide and add plates. I recommend going back to the video about measuring your body to learn a bit more about the super wide trousers. And then the length is 43 cm, just for a normal hem, or 50 cm with a turnip. So that's it. We are all measured up and we've made our calculations. In the next video, we will work out our crotch notch and make a template. 5. Crotch Notch: This style of folks sewing, we use our initiative and our imagination to make loose fitting clothing. So we don't have to be as specific and super detailed and super neat as a tailor would be. Because these trials is a loose fitting. We can't go too wrong. As with the previous two measuring and calculations videos, this one does require concentration. Again, it's the last one that's really thinky. And then we're gonna get into the sewing. So just make sure you do this bit. On a time of day when you're feeling fresh, it might take a little bit of trial and error to find the crotch notch size for you. But then once you've got it, It's just an amazing thing to have worked out because then you can just use it as a template to make lots of pairs of trousers. As I've done, the notch that we cut out is what makes our trousers follow the shape of our body. The two pieces meet in the center and form the crotch. In this class, we will work out what are the dimensions of our crotch notch and then make our own cardboard templates to use for cutting or trousers. Go to the measurements and calculations document and see this all typed up and follow along. The two things we want to decide are the length and the depth of our crotch. Let's go. First of all, let's start with the length. You can work this out the same way we did in the previous lessons by other measuring yourself or your trousers. So in this first video, I'm using my body as a measurement. And I'm going from my belt down to the lowest point of where my crutches. And if you notice I'm not going around my body. I'm measuring from the front and drawing a line across. So that is how you do it, measuring your body. And then here I am measuring with trousers. So I'm going from the waist and then I'm with my finger marking a line of where that lowest point is and measuring a straight line down. So the two figures we have for myself, from waste to crotch is 28 cm and foot Bobby, it's 17 cm. Then once you figure that out, you need to do a little micro calculation of adding 2 cm for the seams. So e.g. with mine, I'm going to add 2 cm to 28, so I'll get 30 cm. And for Bobby's, we're adding 2 cm to 17 So we get 19 cm. Just a little note, when I made my trousers, I was so concentrating on making this video for you that I actually forgot to add the 2 cm. So when I cut Bobby's, they were, I use the 17 cm for the template. Which means if you do that, if you don't add that to centimeters, it will need your trousers set a bit lower, more on your hips than on your waist. So do make sure you add that to centimeters with the crotch. It's always best to be cautious and make it too small first, then you can paste your trousers together, which is when you just roughly sew them together or hold them together and just hold it up against your body and see how it see how it looks and if it's right and then you can always cut more, but once you've cut out across, you can't add more in. That's the, you don't want to do it that way round. What you can do to double-check if this is if you've got it right as well, is once you've made your cardboard templates, you can measure around them like this and measure, put the two templates together and measure around the curve and then do a little calculation. So for mine, when I measured around the templates, I got 67 cm. And then what I need to do is measure around my body like this. So I go from the front of my belly button all the way around and under and to the back. And for that I got 70 cm. Then we need to do a calculation for the seams. So we add 4 cm to the template figure to the a. So 4 cm on top of 67 is 71 cm. And then once you've done that calculation, a should be bigger than b. So e.g. with mine a is 71 cm and B is 70. That is good. If it's the other way round and b is bigger than your trousers won't fit around your bottom. You've not made enough space for the crotch. So use that as a little technique to double-check. Then. Let's move on to the depth. The simple rule is that the front notch is a couple of centimeters smaller than the back. So here's mine and Bowlby's notches next to each other. My trouser notch is 8 cm at the front and 10 cm at the back. And Bobby's notch is 2.5 cm at the front and 4 cm at the back. So how do you work out your depth from seeing the depth we've used is a bit of guesswork rarely because these trousers or loose fitting, you can't go too wrong. If you're making a garment for an adult, I would recommend using my eight centimeter and ten centimeter depth and that should work for you just fine. You might like to add a bit more depth. If you are maternity or plus size, you'll just need to experiment a bit. I also, like I said, with the length, just better to cut the notches smaller than you think. Hold your garment together, based it together, check it and then adjust. Because you can't stick fabric back onto the crotch, but you can take more off. Then. Now we know what the depth is and what the length is. We need to draw our crotch notches out. The simple shape to follow is that the front notch is a straight line and then it curves at the end and the back notch is one smooth curve. Here I am drawing Bobby's notches. So this is the front measuring the 2.5 cm here. And then on to the back. And measuring the 4 cm. Then the length, 17 should have been 19, should have been 19 divided 17. There we go. Measuring my two 17 cm because I didn't follow my own rule of measuring twice and cutting once next time. So now I know for next time it will be 19 cm long. That one the front is the 2.5 and then the back is the four. And then the difference, you'll see in the shape is coming up with the front one. We just want a really small curve at the front, like this. Just a little curve at the front. And then at the back, it's one smooth curves. So starting at the top, we just create a smooth curve going all the way from the top to the bottom. And that's just because the front of your body is more flat and the back is going around your bottom. So then once you've drawn them out, then you can cut them out as templates and use them to draw around them with your fabric. So there's my front one. For Bobby's trousers. There's my back. So those two are now ready to draw around on my fabric. And then looking at my, let's look at my notches again. So I personally have a very long mid section and I used to always get in trouble at school for my midriff showing because high street clothes never fit me properly. So just want to note that because if you're going to copy my depths of my notches, I'd say that's probably going to work for you. But my length is very long. So just make sure you use your own measurements by measuring your trousers, measuring your body and measuring around herself. So that is that. And also when you're thinking about this making your crutches, you are measuring from where you want your trousers to set. So I like my trousers to sit really high on my waist. But if you want yours to sit a bit more low, then measure from that point where you imagine your belt is going to be measured from there. So that's our crotch, not just figured out, that was probably the trickiest lesson in this class. Now we can move on to actually getting stuck into fabric and to sewing. I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. Choose Fabric: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to choose our fabric. We will need a woven fabric because we're working with straight lines. It's much easier to work with a woven fabric. You can tell if a fabric is woven, if you look at it really close up, it will look like a grid. Here's some screenshots of some fabrics that I've looked at online where you can see the grid. And then I'm also going to hold up a few of the fabrics I used for the project and see how you can close up, see that it's a woven fabric. When you are choosing your fabric in a, in a physical shop or online, if you aren't sure if it's woven or not, just go and speak to somebody, go and ask for some help. You can make sure you get the right fabric. So that's one definitely, definitely need woven. And then there's five other things that we need to consider and pay attention to. And they are the composition, the width, the weight, the ethics, and the color. Composition. When you buy your fabric, just make sure you read the small print because some fabrics look like they unnatural. But then when you read them made of polyester or a polyester blend, which personally, I really don't like these. I think they feel squeaky and plasticky and dry. So it's nice to use a cotton or linen or a viscose fabric. They are all natural plant fibers and they will let your skin breathe properly and feel lovely to where you may also find a blend of those are cotton linen blend, a linen viscous blend. And they will feel lovely as well. Onto the width. Fabrics come at different widths. And it's just good to pay attention when you buy your fabric what the width is. It might be good to research in general what the width of the fabric car, where from the shops that you're buying from to give you an idea of the blue check fabric was 140 cm wide and the red linen was 150 cm wide. When you buy fabric, the wider the better, obviously because you have more fabric to work with. Not always, necessarily like that. It's just good to go back to your measuring, go back to your cutting plan when you decide on the width of the fabric that you're going to buy. The next thing to consider is the weight of your fabric. Do you want heavy trousers like this red linen? Or would you prefer a light and floaty fabric for your trousers like these game trousers. To give you an idea, the red linen trousers or 210 g/m squared, and the kingdom trousers or 120 g/m squared. When you go to a fabric shop, you can feel the weights or contact the online shop and ask them some more questions. Ethics is good to have a moment to think about the ethics of the fabric you're buying. How was it made? Who was it made by? Any implications of those things? One simple way that I choose ethical fabric is to buy dead stock or x designer fabric. It's like buying from, it's like buying something second-hand because it's fabric that they've bought for a brand, for a High Street or a designer brand. And then they've overboard the fabric. So they pass it onto these dead stock suppliers and you can buy fabric that would be otherwise thrown away. So that's a really good ethical decision to find dead stock or x designer fabric. Just searched those terms on Google. That's dark fabric. My case, England x designer fabric, UK, search that to help find the fabric. If you can't find any dead stock wax designer fabric, just take a bit more of a moment to research what you're buying. It can be really good to look for E Kotex, which is a certification to prove that the, the dyes that we use for the fabric are not harmful to humans or to the environment. So have a look for the ICA texts stamp if you want to choose a more ethically dyed fabric. And same with the how to find your desktop fabric. If you just Google ICA Tex fabric UK, you will be able to find some fabric that has been produced in that way. And the last one we're going to talk about is color. Choosing a color which you love. You might like to go on Pinterest or Google images to get inspired for the color of your trousers. You might also like to think about the other items in your wardrobe. What color tops do you have? And what color top do you plan to wear with your trousers? So you can make a matching outfit. You might even like to make a top in the same color as your trousers and also how the color makes you feel. I'm wearing this lovely orange and this orange, it makes me feel so bright and radiant. So choose a color that makes you feel good and that you're inspired to work with. Okay, so now we know everything we need to consider when it comes to buying or fabric. So it's time to go shopping. And then I'll see you in the next lesson where we are going to prepare and cut off fabric. 7. Prepare and Cut: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will prepare our fabric to start cutting. It's a slightly different technique we use for cutting, that we use for linen and that we use for cotton. So I will show you both examples. So depending on what kind of fabric you have, you will know how to prepare your fabric. The main thing we need to pay attention here is that when you buy fabric, often they will not cut it straight. The piece of fabric you have will have a slightly jagged edge and you need to correct that first so that you have a straight line to work from that's been cut and then the straight line of the salvage so that you are able to make perfect rectangles. By the end of the session, you will have your fabric cut and ready to. So let's get stuck in. The first step is to wash and dry your fabric as you would. If you're going to tumble dry it, you want to tumble dryer. If you're not going to tumble dry it, don't. And if you're going to hand wash your hands, wash it, but just use the washing technique that you're going to use on the final garment. And then once we've washed it, we would like to iron or fabric so it's smoother and easier to work with. You'll see here this scratchy edge that the seller has left on the fabric. We don't want that because we need that nice straight edge to start off our rectangles with the linen. What we do is called something, something called drawing a thread, or sometimes called pulling a thread as well. And what we do is we find the right length that we want to cut. And then we pull a thread from the fabric and use that to create a guideline for cutting our fabric. So we get a really nice straight line. I recommend doing this part and really good light because it can be hard to see the thread that you've pulled unless you're working in really bright light. So we keep working the whole way along until eventually we have a line running along the whole width of the fabric. See me just pulling it through here. So we get to see this nice line. Then if the, if the thread snaps, we just start again. So I've found where we want to carry on. I get my needle under there. I pull out another thread and start again, pulling that all the way along. So eventually we reach the end. We have a line running, running along the whole length of the fabric. Look like this. And then we follow that with our scissors and cut all the way along. So we have unlovely straight edge. To start cutting. This is very satisfying. You can keep those n bits for stuffing for toys. Don't throw them away if you have any plans to do that. Now onto a lighter fabric because we work with that slightly differently. We don't need to draw a thread. We do something a bit more radical. So first of all, just getting that straight edge. So just take a tiny bit of the end like this and then we rip it. Because when we rip it, it just rips along the green. And then we get a lovely straight edge to work with so that we have it. Now moving on to actually cutting our pieces out. In this video, I am cutting out a belt on another garment, but you'll see me measuring out the width of the belt. And then all I need to do is a little snip which we'll start it off. And then I can rip along the fabric because this fabric is light, easy to do. And then same, cutting out my trouser pieces, I just measure the length or the width that I need. And using the same technique, just cutting and ripping. For the linen. It's a bit different. So here's a close-up video of me preparing the belt on the red linen trousers. So what I need to do is once I've measured out, I draw a line on the fabric and then I just pull the thread like we did at the beginning of this lesson to create a nice straight line for where that is going to be cut out. And it can be a little bit fiddly pulling the thread. And I also recommend doing it in very good light. It can be hard to see the thread that you've drawn on the thread you've pulled the lights really good. And as you go the thread will snap and you'll need to re-find it again with your needle. This is a bit fiddly. It's also really satisfying because you get really nice straight lines. No guesswork involved. There I am again getting another little thread, pulling it along. Then you can see here that straight line and it makes it very easy to cut out the belt because I've got a nice straight line to follow that I've made. As I said, good lights so that you can see that little line that you've created. Now to cutting out the blue indigo fabric for this project. I'm actually using a dress that I didn't like so much as the fabric for this. So that's why there's a strange off cuts on the side there. Just cutting out the rectangles with this fabric because there's a pattern on it. I actually use the pattern as a guideline to follow. By the end of it, I have my two trouser pieces like so. And then when I turn them over there like this, now it's time to mark out which leg is going to be. So I'm going to have my left and my right leg. You want to mark that on because you'll need that for later. And the same. You want the front and the back of your trousers. So I'm doing a B on the left there and then an F for the front and then mirroring on the right leg. That's the front. And then that's the back FB. You should see that there. Then we take our front notch and put it on the front notch side. Can all back notch on the back. And using our Taylor's chalk, we can mark around that ready to cut it out. So this is the left leg, front and back and then onto the right. So this will be the opposite. So you'll see my front notch to the left, this side, and the back notch to the right. If these two pieces should be mirror images, when we've finished drawing around that, then all that's left to do is taking away our cardboard templates and cutting those pieces out carefully following the line. So by the end of this, it will look like this. Two mirror images, front, front facing each other, left and right and then the backs on the outside. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will start to so our trials is together. 8. Sew Seams: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're finally going to get to the sewing. This is where we are going to, so our side seams using the very beautiful and simple running stitch. It's a good idea now to take a moment to think about your intention again, your ankle word, elegance, so that when you are sewing, you can hold that in your mind and in your body as you carry it forward into your life. Even they're running stitch is really simple. It can take a little bit of practice to get the tension right. So be patient with yourself and be willing to unpick. It doesn't go your way. Make sure you don't make your running stitches too long. So you want really nice, neat little stitches. I recommend one to 2 mm long each stitch. And just reminding you again about cutting your thread that we pull one arm and a half. Don't be tempted to use long length of thread, just one arm and a half, and that's the perfect amount of thread you need to get working. Let's go. And so some scenes. We're starting here with our left leg. So what we're going to do is we're going to fold the piece of fabric with the right sides on the inside. Then we're going to sew along this length and stop 1 cm from the end. So what I'm going to do is just to make sure that I've got that one sentiments 1 cm scene, I'm going to draw a little dot there. That is gonna be the point at which I stop. Now I'm cutting a piece of thread to length. So I measure it along the length. I'm going to sew and then a little bit extra for knots. And that's how much we need. Thread my needle. And then time to get my thimble and start sewing along. I always start with a nice naught and usually 2 kt actually, because to make it really secure. So we go in the fabric and then we go around again. And when we go around this time we tucked back in that loop that we've left and it will form a little knot. Here, I'm pulling it. So that will be one naught. I will demonstrate another not now. So we go in, we do a little stitch, then we pull until we see the little loop. We go through the loop pole, and that is 2 kt in a row. So our gamma will be nice and secure. And now we are going along with running stitch, going back and forth and back and forth and then pulling it through. It might take you a while to get the tension right. If you pull it too tight and bunched up, it's like this. You might just want to smooth it out as you go. So we're going all the way along this scene. This is where I'm up to now. Look at my lovely neat stitches. There are about a millimeter. Each stitch is about a millimeter long. And we carry on down, up, down. With my size needle, I can get three or four stitches on before I pull through, which just makes it a little bit quicker. Checking the tension, smoothing it along. Now we're nearly at the stop point that we've drawn that white dot. So catching up with that, it's time to finish off with another couple of knots. So demonstrating the knots again, we go in and through, pull it, go through the loop and pull one naught. And now we'll do the second one in pool through little tiny loop left. Pull through. There we go. So that is in a scene complete. And now we repeat the same. Now repeating with the right leg. So do is measured thread. Again, it's the right length. Cut it to length. Mark out that white dot again, 1 cm from the end. So it's 1 cm from both seems to check in 1 cm each way. And then we're going to do a 1 cm seen on this leg. If you're really new to following along in a straight line, what you can actually do is mark along a 1 cm dash along the, along the scene doing the knots now, so that's not one. Then we're going to do our second note. I've been sewing these 1 cm seems for a while now, so I can just do it by eye. If you'd like to mark a little dash, few dashes as you go along. And that will just make sure that you keep your themes street. So pulling it through. And again, always checking the tension. I don't want it screwed up. And now we've gone all the way along. White mark again. So as we get to that white mark, we are going to check the tension, smooth it out, and do two more knots, pulling through and not in the loop. Then a second one. Same idea. There we go. So now we have our two pieces, like so sewn up on the inside seen. And that completes this lesson. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will construct the right leg to the left leg. 9. Sew Crotch: Welcome back. In this video we are going to, so the right leg and left leg together to form the crotch of our trousers. Here we are where we left off with our two inside seams sewn up. Lovely. Now we are going to match up the front and the front together. So first of all, I'm just going to measure a piece of thread, the length of the crotch, plus a little bit for tying off. Using my handy little threads scissors. And we're going to start here. So what we do is we pull these two pieces and stick them together. Now this can be a bit fiddly when you first do it and you really want to make sure that you don't get any other part of the trousers that you are just getting. This front and this is front right and this front left attached. And what we want to do this is where our white dot is quite good because that is where we're going to rejoin again now. So we're going to do, I always like doing my 2 kt to make it extra secure, especially here at the crotch where a garment gets a lot of strain from movement. So doing my knot there and then making sure that these two pieces are lined up. This is a point now where you might like to pin I, as you know, don't like using pins. You could also take it. And I'm going along now with the running stitch and I'm using my hands as the pin and just holding it together, checking the tension as I go. Nice. 1 cm stitches. Going around the curve and then up the length of the front crotch. Now we're nearly at the end. So we're going to do a few more stitches to get us to the front, to get us to the top belt of the front. And then time for our knots as always. So one not through the loop palate. And to pull it through. And then we go so that is your front part of your trousers attached. Lovely. So now it should look like this when you open it. So you'll see the two sides and then the front attached. And then we repeat the same on the back. Again with this point where they all match up, can get a little bit fiddly. And we want to make sure we get those two sides of fabric and don't accidentally bunch anything else in. Again, that white dot that we drew in the last class. It's quite useful because that is where we want to do or not. Where all the four corners meet in this white dot here. So doing my knots in this point. Ready to, so the back together. Remembering to breathe, relax, relax your shoulders. Sometimes after a day of sewing I can get a bit tense in the shoulders. We're concentrating a bit too much and then adding more strain than necessary. So make sure you're comfortable the way you're sat. Jaw on clenched shoulders, relaxed, repeating exactly the same as we did on the front, making sure we're only attaching these two pieces of fabric and we've not accidentally got a leg bunched up in there. Doing our lovely neat little 1 mm running stitches all the way along with this one. I've already done the not it's finished off. So this is what you should have by the end of this lesson. Your front and your back attached looking like this. Starting to look like a pair of trousers. As you will see. There they are termed the right way round. So looking really nice. Now, in our next lesson, we are going to flat fell or seems so, our garment looks as beautiful inside as it does out. I'll see you in the next lesson. 10. Cut to Fell: In this lesson, we are going to cut away excess fabric to prepare to flat fell or seems here is where we were in the last video. So having our trousers with the front facing us, we separate our scene. And then what we're going to do is we're going to cut away nought 0.5 half a centimeter all the way along so that we can fold our scene around. So we're left with 1 cm on one side and naught 0.5 on the other. This is what it looks like as we go up. Then we will get to the crotch. When we get to the crotch, we just want to cut away from that little notch. There we go. So that is ready to go. Then what we're going to do is we're going to carry on now along the front of the trousers. So we've done the inside leg and now we're doing the front. So what we do is we get this fabric, again, cutting a little notch out of it. And going along, going to travel all the way up the front center of the trousers so that we have a 1 cm piece of excess fabric on one side and naught 0.5 on the other side now is ready to flat fell. And then we will repeat the same on the other by just turning over the trousers and doing the exact same thing. So we're now at the back. We open up this scene. And the piece of fabric furthest from us, we're going to cut that nought 0.5 cm away, half a centimeter away, so that we have the longer piece to fold over. Once we get to the corner, going to come up and come around. And then we're going to travel upwards. So just making sure that there's loads of bits of fabric sticking out in the crotch. It should smooth around. There we go. Inside leg Done. And now coming up the back, the back middle. And taking that right piece of fabric. There we go. Nought 0.5 cm, going all the way along. And there we have it at the end. So by the end of this class, that is it, we will have both sides don't exactly the same with 1 cm at the front and naught 0.5 at the back, and then flipping the trousers again. So nought 0.5 on one side and 1 cm on the other side. So now we are fully prepared to flat file or scenes. I'll see you in the next lesson. 11. Flat Fell Seams: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to use a finishing technique which will make your garment look as beautiful from the inside as from the outside. Modern garments use an oval locker, which to me create such an ugly inside seam. And it can also be a bit itchy because it's, it's not smooth. So what we're going to do with flat felled seam. So the scene as felled found to the garment, which looks beautiful and feels cozy. Let's go and fill some themes. As with the last lesson, let's breathe, relax, and focus on our intention as we. So this is where we left off with our seems all cut and prepared, ready to flat file. What we're going to do, we're going to start at the front, the trousers a front-facing right now. What we're going to do is we're going to fold this longer piece of fabric around to create this almost invisible seem. That's why I like the flat file seems it's almost like there's no seam there at all. And it's so pretty neat when you're finished. Before we fold it, Let's first of all do a naught. So I like to do one naught underneath, so tucking it under here. And I'm going to do one secure or not. Using my thumb to hold the tail of the thread so it doesn't go running away with me. There's one naught and then I'm going to fold that top piece of fabric around. And then I'm gonna do another note that this flat file seems starts with two lovely secure not so our garment is held together. Nice and strong. Taking a moment to check in again, have you tense to jaw? Have you tense to shoulders? Are you sitting comfortably? I've got that nice secure not I'm ready to travel up the inside leg, folding as I go. So pinching the fabric around. And then I scoop up one or two threads and then come in at an angle. We're going to demonstrate this quite a few times because this is really important, this stitch. So scooping up, taking two or three threads and coming in at an angle. Again a bit closer, scooping into all three threads where we went in and then coming up and through at an angle. This, as you can see, really does look like there's no stitches there and they're so tiny. It's taken me a while to practice to get these stitches so tiny and neat and also even so be patient with yourself as you learn this stitch. And you get your nice even stitches. Carrying on the same. So going in two or three threads back out at an angle. And again in two or three threads back out at an angle. Pinching with my left thumb, holding the fabric together. Like other parts of this sewing project is all about how you handle the fabric. And you might find that you develop, strengthen your hands from where you're pinching and holding parts of the garment together. So now we're heading towards the crotch where it gets a little bit fiddly because we want to flat fell the crotch as well. So as we approach it, getting it as close as we can before we start to turn and then travel up the front center of the trials is what we're going to do is we're going to fold it. It almost looks like a very wide V. You'll see as we approach the very center of the crotch that it looks like little wide V that I've tucked under my thumb. I'm holding it under my thumb run out but there you can see it a little wide V. And because as I said in previous video, this part of the Garmin at the crotch gets a lot of strain. I sometimes do more knots here. So at this point where all the four corners meet, I am going to do quite a few knots. So there is one not looped. So that's nice and secure. Can see that V shape traveling around. Getting ready to go up the front center. I think I'm gonna do another not oh, no. Did another stitch. There will be more not so I'm sure I'm sure I wouldn't just do one. Not they're coming round. Oh, I did just do one nor maybe there'll be another note here. Oh, no. You might like to do more than 1 kt. Or when you do the second layer, I think when I do the second leg there might be more knots. So coming up to the end of the front center. Ready to do our 2 kt to secure off completing one half of our flat felled seams. There we go with our lovely to nuts. What we can do is we can make the thread disappear by tucking it back in where we came out, go along a bit, pop out. And then we trim it there. That makes our thread disappear. So there we have it there is that one side looking really beautiful and smart and finished. So now it's time to head on over to the other side. Flipping the garment and repeating exactly the same. So opening the bottom of the trousers, flipping it around. And we'll do the same technique where we do two naughts, one underneath, one over, and then inside the leg. And now we've jumped forward to just do the crotch where This is the fiddly a bit. And we're going to do another V, folding that v around. So by the end of it, it will look like two V's very wide. V is placed on top of each other. And I'm pretty sure I'm gonna do more knots this time because we really want to make sure that that top V is secured to the bottom V. So you'll see now I'm starting my knots. Here is one. Lovely Not for that v. So can you see now it's starting to look like two V's on top of each other, folding it around. And I'm going to go around V, and then I'm going to flat fell the back together. So let's do a few more stitches, hopefully a few more knots as we move around this V and get it nice and secure. Another not folding, folding as we go. I've got a few excess threads hanging around here. That's I wasn't really on it with cutting my threads earlier. Don't do that. Cut the threads as you go because then you're going to stop yourself confusion later on. So now I'm coming around the bend, ready to go up the center. And I'm gonna do one more final note here just to get that secure before we travel up. So you can see there now one v with another V on top. There's the North now. So say in total there are three or 4 kt there just to really make sure that that part was really secure. Coming up to the end, just like we did at the front. And we're going to fasten off. Repeating exactly the same as we did on the front with two lovely knots. And now that's secure. We're going to repeat as we did on the front and make that thread disappear. So we tuck it in, pull through, and trim that piece of thread. And now our trials is starting to look really lovely. Look at those beautiful, nearly invisible seems. So this is the inside of your trousers. So you're really not going to be aggravated by your seams here because then nearly invisible, you can see the two V's on top of each other at the crotch there. And lots of nots where they meet. So it's really secure. To showing you the crotch again from a few angles you can see what we've done. Really beautiful. I do love a flat file seem I do. That's how they're looking now. In our next lesson, we are going to add these pretty pleats. Or if you are not going to add pleats to your trousers, skip ahead to the lesson after. I'll see you in the next lesson. 12. Pretty Pleats: In this lesson, we are going to add some pretty pleased to our trousers. Firstly, we need to decide where our plates will be. You can try on what you've done so far to see where you'd like your pleats and imagine them. I'm actually going to use the measurements I did on these Gangnam trousers because I think the measurements here came out lovely. So here are the measurements which we measure from the center front scene. So we need to measure from the center front seem to the start of the first pleat, 8.5 cm. Then the first pleat is 7.5 cm wide, and then a gap, three centimeter gap between the two. And then the second pleat is 7.5 cm. So here's a close-up of the trousers so you can see what it means that you've got these gaps in between the plates. So here we are on these rainbow trousers adding some pleats. So first of all, I'm measuring out from the center front seam where the first pleat we'll start. And then I will measure the width. Once I untangle my tape, I will measure the width of the first pleat. So with these rainbow trousers, because of the stripes, I slightly adjusted the measurements because I wanted to follow the, the stripes. If you'd like. The exact measurements are used for the rainbow trousers that is in the measurements and calculations document. So I do the gap and then I do the final pleat. Once that's marked out, you might like to write underneath each section what it is, whether it's a pleat, whether it's a gap. So when it comes to folding it, you'll know what you're doing. So there's my first gap. And then I've written a P there for pleat. So what I need to do these two pleat lines, I match them up. So at the moment, the front, we've got the trousers inside out. So the pleat is going to go inside like this. So just make sure your trousers or the right way. These trousers are inside out. So I'm doing a knot. To start with my plate. I like my pleats to be somewhere around three to 4 cm long. Your own choice, you can try it out. So these, these trousers, I'm going to do a four centimeter long plate. You might even like to try even longer. Statement pleat. And then I just sew along running stitch all the way down to that four centimeter mark. Once we get nearly to the mark, what we're going to do is we're actually going to make these pleats really secure. We're going to sew back the other way. So we come out the end of the pleat and then we head back up to the top of the trousers to make these pleats really sick. Yeah. Here we are, finishing off this pleat, so we'll come to the top and tie it off or they're not. Then we just need to repeat the same for the other three pleats. Nice double, not secure. Now heading along to the second plate on this side, you can see I've got the two pleat Marx was doing exactly the same thing. We're lining those two marks up against each other. So that's our first two pleats complete. Once we've got that secure with another double naught, I actually like to try on my garment at this point once I've done these knots so that I can see if I like where the plates are because at this point you could just take them out and move them if they don't. Look right to you. Here, I am just holding them up against me and I'm actually very happy with where these pleats are. I think they look really nice. Add some nice shape. So those are those two finished. Then I need to do this side. So then once that is done, it will look like this. So I have two points on this side. So the trousers it inside out. This is the inside of the pleats, turning them around. They'll look like this. And again, I like to try them on and just see how it looks. These are kind of like a clown style trousers or like how much it makes the trousers kinda balloon out. Very, very happy with that. Then the last step to get the pleats ready for the belt is to flatten them. You might like to measure this out. I'm just doing it by eye. So they should be exactly even this fold. Then all you need to do is so that flat, so that when it comes to doing your belt, you don't catch it funny. And all we're gonna do for that is a simple running stitch. And what you want to make sure is that you're running stitch is you leave a nought 0.5 cm scene because you're going to so the belt over by 1 cm because you want this, this little mini, mini line you're sewing here to be hidden in the belt. If you do it at nought 0.5 cm, then when you so the belt out one centimeters, this will disappear into the belt. Again, this is a point where you could use pins if you want to hold it flat. But as a non fan of pins, I'm just using my hands to hold it flat there and running all the way along the width of the pleat. Then we need to do is fastened off with an art. And that is done. So now we just need to do the same with all the other pleats here. They are all done or float, and this is what it looks like from the front. So that is your pleats added to your trousers. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will start to attach our belt. 13. Cut and Sew Belt: So here's the measurement we need to do with our belt width. We need to multiply it by two. So it's the front and the back of the belt and then add 2 cm for seam allowance. So e.g. for the trousers I made myself E was 3 cm. Multiply that by two, add 2 cm. So I need 8 cm in width. And then we need to measure the length. About. The way I do this is once I've cut a strip, the right width, I just hold it against the trousers and measure like so, and leave at least 2 cm for the same, ideally a bit more just so that in case there's a little bit of stretch that you've got a long enough belt. So just showing you again because you wanna make sure that you hold the fabric really taught as you measure this, you could also use a tape measure and double-check it, but just add at least 2 cm, maybe 34 seam allowance. Now you need to decide where the elastic is going to start on your belt. So e.g. with these brown trousers I'm wearing, you can see where the elastic starts. It starts off just round the back of the trousers. But you could do a smaller panel like this or somewhere in-between. You needed to decide that. When you've decided where your elastic is going to start, you need to measure from the scene of your trousers all the way around to the point where you would like your elastic to start. Once you've got that figure, then you need to go to your trousers that you're making. Here are some trials that are actually already completed, but you'll get the idea. So you go from the scene around these ones with baby, baby Bobby's, they start at 16 cm. So I want to draw a dash at 16 cm coming from the front in a scene. So right now the trousers, a front-facing, then from the front in a scene, again, the other side, so matching, so 16 centimeter dash on this side, that is where our elastic or start. And we'll use that as a guide for starting our belt. So we'll look a bit like this will have two dashes at the back. But these trousers are already finished, but we'll go back now to the unfinished trousers. So here are my two marks, the 16 cm. Now the trousers or the back facing. The trousers are facing the back. And we're just double-checking that in the middle. Okay. So now you want your trousers inside out with the back facing you. And we're going to start by leaving the 1 cm seam allowance. And then sowing. We live in 1 cm from the end of the belt and for the length of it as well. So just in this corner here. So that's where we do are first starting stitch for the belt. Just making a note of which way the fabric of the belt is facing and which way the trousers are facing. So you can see right now that the belt is inside out as well. That's the wrong side of the fabric facing us. So we're doing it like this. And then we do running stitch going around from there. We started at the back of the trousers and we're heading towards the front of the trousers and going around sewing a 1 cm seen with our neat little 1 mm running stitch. You can do it either way. Hold it with the belt facing you, or the inside of the trousers. You might like to switch between the two so that you know, you're not going wonky. And as with other parts of doing the seams, you can mark a 1 cm dash going along so that you know, you're following straight. But because I've done a lot of 1 cm seems I can naturally follow that straight line and follow the green, the fabric traveling around. So now we've gone around the front of the trousers and we're coming back towards the starting point. Carrying on with our neat running stitch. You could pin this as you go. You know, I didn't like pins, but you could have this pinned as you travel around. So coming back to the start point now, you'll see we have these two parts that need to meet the two ends of the belt. Want to go all the way back to the start point. Now these two ends will touch like so, and they meet together. And if you've measured it perfectly there, this should be a 1 cm seem as well. I think I'm my one side is little bit shorter than 1 cm. That's why I said it's good to leave a little bit extra because if you pull too tight on the trousers and it stretches a bit, then you might not have enough length for the belt. So there we go, tying and not there. So now we know the belt is secure around. Cut off all the stray threads as you go. Please don't do what I'm doing. It makes it very confusing, doesn't it? With all these stray threads hanging around. Now, we want to close the belt here. So these two pieces, we're sticking them together and we're going to do running stitch, making sure that we've just got these two belt pieces. We don't want to include the trousers and this is just showing you I don't want the trousers and I'm just doing these two belt pieces. Traveling up with running stitch. You can see it's supposed to be 1 cm, but mine looks a little bit smaller because I didn't have enough fabric, silly sausage going all the way up to the end. And then we do a fastening, not at the end. To fastening knots to be secure. Now if we turn this inside out, it should look like this. So this is the trousers inside out. Then if I turn them the right way, it should look like this. And then we're going to fold that inside. And then flat fell. This part, which will we be doing in the next lesson. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will flat fell our belt closed. 14. Flat Fell belt: This is where we left off with our trousers. This is the back facing us and we're looking for that white mark on the back to this side. Then what we're going to do is we're going to flat fell the front of the belt shot before we add the elastic to the back. So where that white mark is, we're going to first of all, do a starting knot. At the scene. You can see here I didn't leave enough tail. I'm leaving this as an example. You can see how mistakes happen. You need to make sure you leave enough tail at the end. And you can keep the tail under your thumb. That will make sure that you're not as nice and secure. So there we go. And then we're going to leave the 1 cm same and flip that round onto our belt. So this width that we are flat filling up the front should look the same width as our elastic. So Bobby's elastic, I think it was 2 cm. So we're left with a two centimeter belt at the front. And then the elastic or tuck in the back. For the moment. Just lining this up, I've got this pattern on my trousers, which gives me a bit more of a guideline of how to keep it straight, but just make sure that you're following the grain of the fabric, that you fold it round straight. I'm doing another fastening not here. So we've done 1 kt underneath and now one not around the flat filling just to make sure this is secure before we start. And then folding that 1 cm seem we are now going to do the same flat fell stitch that we did on the inside of the trousers. We will travel around the front of the belt. This again adds a really lovely, neat finish. As with other parts, you might like to pin it. I personally don't want to. We're coming back to the scene now, so we've gone all the way around the front and now we're coming back to the scene where the two ends of the belt met. And that is the point where the elastic joins the back. We're coming to all white mark on the other side. Can you see that scene there if the elastic once we get to that seem. So we've gone all the way from one white mark around the front back to the other white mark. You'll see this now. So that's the front looking very finished, but the back is still open. So that's where the elastic joins on that side. And then it will join on the other side here. So that is the front part of our belt complete. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will attach the elastic and close our belt. 15. Sew Elastic : Now time to add our elastic. So starting where we left off, where the belt same is with tucking in the elastic. We want it to be tucked in by 1 cm. So it's nice and secure. It's hard to see here that you see on my thumb is that's where the elastic is. And then you can see that white seam, so it's tucked under by 1 cm. We didn't cut my thread off because we were already sewing along this way, so we're just going to carry on. So we first of all do not to secure the first bit of the *** to Qin. And then what we're going to do is we're going to travel up that seam of the belt with a running stitch to fix the elastic in place. So I'm pinching the elastic under my thumb. It's 1 cm buried in the scene. And then we're going up this scene to secure the elastic in place. It's good to turn your piece as you work because your needle might pop out at different points. So just make sure you turn it so that you follow along the scene very neatly. Once we get to the top, we want to secure that with a nice naught. Then, because this is going to get strain because of the elastic. I like to then run back the other way. So we've done running stitch up and now we're gonna do running stitch back down, turning the fabric as we go. So heading down that seam. And then once you get to the bottom, another knot to secure. So now we've got one side of the elastic nicely attached. Then we can flat fell the back and tuck that elastic to hide it away. What we want to make sure is when we flat file this back, that we're not catching the elastic in our stitches because we want the elastic to be free to move because that's what gives the garment stretch. So just make sure there's a tiny gap between where you're felling and why your elastic is just tuck the elastic out of the way. So I'm just slowly working along and folding as I go, leaving that gap so that I don't, so the elastic onto the felled belt that it can just move freely, travelling around. Eventually, we'll get back to the beginning. Where are we? We're going to close our belt off. So you need to leave a little gap like that. That's probably a three or four centimeter gap, but the elastic poking out. Now you need to decide how much you want to scrunch this in, like how tight you want your belt to be. The way I normally do this is by measuring on myself with my trousers that aren't yet finished. I leave the elastic hanging out and then I just pull it around my body. Like so until I feel like I've got a good fit that it's tight enough. And then we're following along that in a scene. We're gonna do one mark where we're going to join the elastic and then one mark 1 cm after which is where we're going to cut because we want a 1 cm attachment point. Sorry, I've already got these marks here on these trousers. So I'm going to cut away from the scene. So we've we're ready to attach it. And then what we need to do is we need to hide that bit of elastic looking for that white mark or trousers are. Then we're going to tuck that in. And again, you can't see the elastic under there now, but it's 1 cm in. And now we need to make a nice straight line going up to fix the elastic. So we do the same as we did on the other side. Apart from this time, we don't have the pre-existing seam of where the belt was joining. So we're making our own straight line doing a couple of knots to secure that. Then as before turning the fabric backwards and forwards and following the grain of the fabric. So we get a nice straight line. Going up. So here we are. Now we've gone all the way up to the top, the belt. We do not. And as before, we are going to travel back down to extra secure our elastic in place because of the strain at this point. The garment. Now heading back down and you'll see now I've gone up and back down. It makes a nice, neat line. And then we need to not that at the bottom. So doing a nice double knot there. So that's nice. Answer again. Then after that we'll make this piece of thread disappear by tucking the needle up into the elastic and then trimming the thread so that piece of thread is finished with. Now we'll return back to the felling, where there's a tiny gap now that we need to close, which is where we left off. We had a little break while we attached belt and then we're coming back and we're going to close that final bit of belt. Reattaching my thread. This is a little bit familiar because the elastic is already there. So you have to Use your see how I'm using my little finger to keep the fabric taut so we're able to so the osteon traveling up with filling stitch again, I'm just making sure we don't catch any of the elastic in our stitch. I'm just tucking away some loose threads that I didn't cut off earlier. So there we go. It's now closed shot. Now we just need to do a few notes to secure it. Again, making the thread disappear by tucking the needle back through the elastic. Leave a nice, neat finished no threads dangling. This is where we are now. Our trousers are starting to look nearly finished. Very, very lovely. Here's the back with a nice elastic aided back. In the next lesson, we are going to add our turnip hymns to our trousers. I'll see you in the next lesson. 16. Turn Ups : So our trousers nearly finished. This is how they're looking. We just need to do our him. What you can do is you can just do a small him like this and just flat fell it down. If you want to clear instructions on this, go to the gathered skirt class where I do at him like this. But in this class I thought it'd be fun to add a turnip to our trousers as a nice style feature. What we do is we turn off our trials is like this. You might like to do this wearing your trousers just so you can check that you're happy with the length that you've got. You might want to do bigger turnips or smaller turnips, depending on how tall you are and how long you'd like to trousers to look at the end. I've realized I like an ankle swinger. It's actually more practical because otherwise I end up getting all mud on the end of my trousers. So deciding on your length. Once you've got them. Even so making sure your right leg and your left leg even. We're going to just fix our turnips with a few knots. So starting with the inside leg, we're just going to do knot. And then a few stitches to hold this in place. A couple of knots and then let's see how many stitches I'm going to do just one. Too. Relaxing your shoulders. Three. You could, if you like, travel all the way around and flat fell the hem like so if you wanted. But I'm just going to secure a few stitches here. So I've done three. That's it. Two units. So it was two nuts, three stitches, and then one naught. Then we just hide it. We have before and trim it. Now we just need to repeat that same process. On the outside leg, sit on the outside like we won't have a seem to mark where we want to go, so we just need to use I, I've creased the trousers on the outer edge so we can see where that line would be. So same idea, 2 kt, three stitches and then a knot. And that will secure our turnips. Repeating the same on the outside leg. Relaxing your jaw, relaxing your shoulders, your eyes. Pull that through the disappearing thread. Fantastic. And now all we do is repeat exactly the same on the other leg. So by the end it will look like this. You'll have a secure point here. Secure point here, point here, and a secure point here. They are almost finished. We're just gonna do a few little final touches in our last video. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 17. Finish and Well Done: Welcome to the final lesson of this class. A big, well done to finish off our trousers. There's a few simple things we need to do. First of all, just going through and checking if you've got any loose threads on your garment that need cutting off or removing. A way to make our garment look really crisp and finished is to give our garment and nice ion that I know your garment is finished. It's time to celebrate and reflect. How will you celebrate? You might like to wear your garment to a special event or ask a friend or a family member to take some pictures so you can share it with your friends is really useful to reflect on the process and what you learned. It's particularly good to make a note of what you would change next time. If you're going to make the trousers again, would you make them wider? Would you make them longer? E.g. after I made these two pairs of blue and red trousers, I decided I wanted to make some really wide, almost clown style trousers with pleats. And then I made these gang and check one. These are the skills I learned from the blue and the red trousers and applied it to the kingdom and just made them fit me even nicer. I also really recommend making sure you've got all your notes written down in a nice clear spot so that next time you make the trousers, It's really easy. So you might like to write that in a notebook, handwritten, or typed it up. The measurements you calculate it. What size of the rectangles, what size of the belt, what size of the plates, so that when you want to make another pair, it's a simple process, rather than having scraps or notes all over the place. So now we've celebrated and reflected on the process is time to say goodbye. I'm really glad that you've taken this class and there's lots of ways we can stay in touch. So if you have any questions or problems as you go through this class, please go to the Discussions tab and asked me a question and I will go ahead and answer you there. If you do go and make a pair of trousers, I love to see what you make. Please share a photo in the project section on Skillshare. And if you're going to upload a photo to social media, please do tag me at Lora Lamm with hashtag, folk sewing with Laura. It really helps me if you write a review. So if you've enjoyed this class, please head to the review section and just write a sentence or two about how you enjoyed this class. You can also visit my teacher page which shows the other sewing classes and other classes that I have to offer. And there you will also find links to my social media and my email list where I send out an email about once a month or a little more frequently with things I'm making and learning. And you'll be updated when new classes get uploaded to Skillshare. Made the magical art of sewing add peace, intention, and clarity to your life. Thanks so much for watching.