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Finally a pair of culottes!

I have been wanting to make this pair of culottes for quite awhile and this pattern has been in my possession for quite awhile.


I had a some navy benagline that I had bought from fabric.com and it has been in my stash for quite awhile. Benagline is wonderful fabric but the stretch goes length-wise, along the selvage so you need to adjust if you want to make use of the stretch. But as I started laying out the pattern I realized that I was going to have to be creative as I was going to be a little short on fabric.

These are a pretty easy sew.  I decided that since this was being made out of stretch fabric I would add an elastic waist.  Because I cut this on the lengthwise grain and because I didn't have much yardage, I had to cut out View D.  This view only had darts and not the extra fabric needed to make the pleats.  According to my measurements I needed to cut out a size 14.  Because I am shorter, I adjusted the length of culottes by 4 inches, giving me just enough fabric.

I was able to get this done in a couple of hours and most of the sewing was done on my serger.  I love how this looks and I am very pleased with how it turned out.


So on to the construction of these culottes. I decided I would go ahead and add the waistband with the elastic encased inside it.  However when I tried them on the crotch length was way to long and the waist band ended up being almost to my lower bust!  I ripped out the waistband and decided that I would just attach the elastic to the waist and then turn it under.  This is a technique that I have seen used in some of my RTW skirts with an elastic waist.  Nancy Zieman has a great tutorial here.

I used my serger to attach the elastic to the culottes:


Once I turned it over it looked like this:


Then I went ahead and stitched in "the ditch" to attach the elastic to the culottes and to keep them intact. (I probably need to use a real camera and not my iphone to take pictures)



Size: 14 based on the pattern measurements.  This fit very well and has plenty of ease

Fabric: Navy bengaline from fabric.com.  They are out but I am sure other sites will have some in stock.

Design Change: I removed 4 inches from the length of the culottes and also deleted the waistband. I also deleted the pockets but only because I was out of fabric.

Construction Notes:  The entire skirt was made on my serger, with the exception of the hem.  This means that the seam was adjusted from 5/8in to 3/8in.  I used a double needle to sew the hem.  I lowered the tension to avoid "tunneling" which sometimes occurs with a double needle.

Will I make this again: Most definitely!  I plan on making the version with the pleats and have some black benagline at home that I plan on using.




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