Coming soon...Parsley Pants!
UDDATED: The Parsley Sewing Pattern is now available in my shop!
I want to talk a little bit today about the new pant pattern I've been working on. Introducing Parsley Pants!
emmy lizzy's velveteen pants
{Shown above: quite possibly my all-time favorite version of the pants in velveteen, via emmmylizzzy's Instagram}
Emily also happens to be one of the testers for this pattern, and is a guestie today over at the Kids Clothes Week blog with a post showing all seven pairs of the Parsley Pants she's made. SEVEN. I can't tell you how much it means to me to get that kind of endorsement on something I've been working so hard on.
The pattern will soon be available on the Parsley Page and will come in kids' sizes 2-10. I'm not exactly sure, but if you've got a slim kid in the 11-12 size range, you may find that a bit of length added to the size 10 will work too.
The thought process behind this pattern: I love sewing pants for my kids, but I've always had to "hack" other pant patterns to get what I wanted. So I went back to the drawing board and drafted a new pant pattern from scratch, and I've been tweaking it over the last few months to get the fit just right.
I do realize that one pant pattern can't be and do *everything*...but that hasn't stopped me from trying. Essentially, the Parsley Pant is a two-piece pant, so there's just one main pattern piece. This makes cutting and sewing the pants really super quick. The most basic version of this pattern, therefore, is an easy full-elastic waist pant, perfect for lounge or pajama pants.
{Nursery Versery pajama pants. Note that because I didn't love the fit in the crotch here, it has since been adjusted}
But I didn't want the pant to stop there. I wanted to add enough "extras" to the pattern to make it fun to customize and easy to transform, something I've realized has become a common thread among many of my patterns (like Flashback and Geranium, for example, that people are making so many amazing variations of).
So Parsley comes with tons of options: instructions for making flat-front pants (shown above), a finished hem line to make it easy to upcycle other pairs of pants into Parsleys, kneepads (classic ovals are included, but why not make heart-shaped ones with this tutorial? Or rectangular ones like the brown pair I made for Elliot during Celebrate the BOY with my Kneepads 3 Ways tutorial?), tuxedo stripes, pouch pockets (shown on Emily's velveteen version), pintucks, and box pleat pockets (as seen previously on the Saffron Pants).
Anyway, I'm really happy with the feedback we got from our testers last week, and this week Elli and I are putting the finishing touches on some last-minute fit adjustments that I hope will make the Parsley Pants even better. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it takes a ton of work to make a pattern simple and easy enough that it becomes a default, an essential part of your pattern collection; but it's a kind of work that I find thrilling and really gratifying. I think we've achieved it, I think you'll love it, and I'm really excited that it's almost ready to go!Stay tuned for the pattern, or if you want you can sign up for my newsletter on the sidebar to get a little email alert when it's ready.