My Wool Has Been Shipped and Pants Update

I'm so excited. The wool I ordered on Presidents Day is on it's way.

Is it suitable for a coat. Nope, still haven't found the perfect wool for any of my vintage coat patterns. But while looking I came across this great wool, that yes, it will work for a retro suit jacket and, bonus, I can dye the excess for rug hooking. How much excess will there be, oh about 7 yards or so.

Meanwhile, the pants. Well I pretty much went as far as I'm going on the pants. The good news is, hey they fit. And the bad news. My fabric selection sucked--but remember, I have no fabric for pants because I generally don't sew pants and this fabric was free. I burn tested it and hey, it's not synthetic, so I think I will sew up the side seam, attach the facing, baste the hem edge so it doesn't ravel and wash these every time I do a dark load and see how much this fabric will soften up. I don't want to waste my time on a zipper unless these soften up. So it's cotton, it's a medium weight twill, there is some hope these could end up very soft and hanging very nicely by summer. Currently they are too stiff. It's like trying to make something out of cardboard. So now that I know they'll fit, I just need to make them out of something decent fabric wise.

And now for he darts. Check out the angle of the darts. Different eh, but they work. Anyway, having difficulty the first time out with trying to pin and sew I gave that method up and basted just inside the line I should be stitching on. I wised up after the first one and used a contrasting thread.Then I finger pressed along those lines to form a ditch to stitch in, then I matched up the stitch lines to find the fold line for the dart and finger pressed that. Then I sewed just outside the basting. The threads on the outside are the bobbin from the basting using contrasting color. You just pull those threads and your basting goes away. More on these after a few months of washing.