Basic Black Dress Pants

After an exasperating hour at the mall, in which every pair of dress pants I tried on was either obscene, clingy, unflattering, ill fitting, or ugly, I gave up and went to Fabricland. If I was smart, I would have gone straight there and saved an hour of my time and a lot of frustration.

Unfortunately, the bargain section failed me. There were plenty of light or brown or striped or patterned fabrics but nothing in plain black of the right weight. In my opinion, basic black dress pants are an essential work wardrobe component. Dark grey runs a close second. I bought some yardage of both.




The grey is a polyester-rayon-spandex blend. It feels fabulous. I wish they'd had it in black as well. The black is 100% polyester. Both are 60" wide and were on sale. With 2.50 meters, I should be able to sew a short skirt and a pair of pants from each. The total bill, taxes and everything, was forty dollars making the cost ten dollars an item. That's way less expensive than the pants I was trying on. The pair that came the closest to looking halfway decent was $89.00. Not. Doing. That.




The pattern is out of print Vogue 2925. I've sewn these before and they're quite flattering.




Here are the pants from the last time. I gave these to a friend who was losing weight because they were a bit too long in the body and felt uncomfortable. When I talked to her last night, it turned out that she had saved them to give back to me. She's now a size four. I still fit these. Go figure.

I tried them on again last night and will pin fit them today and tweak the pattern. It looks like I'll take an inch out of the hip depth to lower the waistband and raise the crotch level and lengthen the leg to compensate and that should be good. The width is perfect. I added a waistband as a narrow one works best for my constantly shifting waist size. It's either that or elastic and I prefer the secure feeling of the narrow waistband.


Here's the technical drawing. This is a wonderful pattern, one of the few wardrobe patterns where I actually like each garment. I know the blouse gets rave reviews. LOVE the peplum on the jacket. Since peplums are popular again, perhaps I'll make it too.

Yesterday, I did something I haven't done in a really long time. First, I calculated how much I would earn per pay period at my new job, deducted the income tax, divided the amount by the percentage I am allocating toward spending, divided it by two, and took that amount of spending money out of the bank for the next week. Those of you who are on a budget are probably going duh. Believe me, I get what you're thinking. Years ago, I either paid cash or bought an item on my credit card and then went immediately to the bank and paid it off. AND THEN... I opened my business.

Paycheques went from bi-weekly to quarterly and/or intermittent. I got in the habit of buying and then playing catch up instead of paying cash. As you know, I excel at spending money so that didn't always work out as well as it should have. Now, with a job, one of my goals is to re-learn how to live within my means and to pay cash. I'm in training for retirement. Right now, Howard works a lot of overtime which is great for catch-up but when he retires, we'll be on a fixed income and retirement is getting closer quickly. The amount I calculated is less than I usually spend. That made me a bit panicky. Apparently, I'm about to learn some lessons in self control and discipline. This is good. I think. I hope.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - a weekend in the studio with a good friend doing what I love to do