The Real Deal

Here's the final pocket on the pants front. It looks a little funky right now because the opening is basted shut and, well, this knit just does not want to cooperate in proving I have straight stitching. Trust me. I'm OCD enough that I would rip out and re-do crooked stitching. ;-)



I haven't yet finished the pocket bag. I'm going to wait until I have the capris on to decide how deep I want the pocket, depending on where it hits me, etc. It will be an easy "alteration" … just a quick run through the serger to chop off the bottom.



In an email last night, Belinda gave me a good hint about using a lightweight fusible interfacing so I gave it a try. I think I like the stabilizer better, but only because it's fiddly to draw a straight line on the interfacing. Bulk-wise, it's great. IOW, there is none.



A few of you commented about interfacing and fabrics, etc. Let me tell you what I was thinking and why I made the decisions I did.

"Is your knit a pant weight? Using a thinner fabric could also eliminate a lot of bulk. "

"I also think that if you make the whole pocket out of the double knit it will be thicker, not thinner than if you add the pocket facings to a light weight pocketing. "

Yes, the fabric is pants weight doubleknit. Using a thinner knit fabric would give the pocket a tendency to creep up and/or stretch out. There really isn't excessive bulk with just the two layers of the pants fabric. It was the facings from the original instructions that added unnecessary bulk.

Using a thinner woven fabric would mean I'd have to iron my pocket after laundering the pants. Um, no thank you. ;-) I think it would also bunch up because of the friction factor between two different types of fabric.

You really need to feel the fabric in real life to know these things.

"Without the interfacing, how will you keep the pocket from stretching out of shape?"

"I'd think twice, maybe 3 times before I left out the stabilizer in your pocket."

With the method I used, you outline the pocket hole about 3 times and then I edgestitched it too. That's a lot of "stay stitching" so it's not going anywhere. ;-) I'm also not planning on stuffing a bunch of stuff inside the pocket. A few dog treats and maybe a cell phone when I'm out walking or a grocery list while I'm shopping. That's it. These aren't meant to be dress pants so even if it *does* stretch out a little over time, I'm OK with it. The pocket will be covered up by a shirt anyway. But, really, I don't think it would stretch even if I didn't use the fusible, which I used only because you need to draw out the template on *something* and I wanted to try Belinda's suggestion. Two birds/one stone, etc.

So now that the pocket is done, maybe I can finish these pants tonight. I only have the waistband and finishing the leg bottoms to go.