When I first saw this pattern from Blank Slate Patterns, I knew that I wanted to make a linen pair for the summer. But, because it is still FREEZING in Ohio, I thought about making something a little more snuggly. As I looked through fabric that I already had in my stash, I saw a color that would look fabulous as the detailed pockets. Am I about to make a pair of pants from a certain fabric just because I think the pockets will look cool? Yep!

Just to note, this pattern is not meant for athletic loungwear types of fabric. However, I have been lounging in some serious Hudson Pants (joggers) all winter long so I thought maybe a dressy sweatpant might be fun to conjure up. I figured if they failed miserably, at least the pattern for Hudson pants was smaller and I could disassemble these and make those instead.

I started with the pockets first. Pockets are the best. That just needed to be said. I found some cool pearl like buttons in my stash bin (containing about a 1000 buttons). There are two versions of this pocket: a faux button placement and an actual button hole. Because my fabric was stretchy knit, I decided to go faux because I wasn’t sure how the fabric would agree with my button hole maker.

Once the pockets were placed, every other step went together fairly easy. When I got to the hole for the drawstring, I was right about the bottonhole foot. It took a little coaxing to get the stitches to work. I also opted to thread a 1/2 inch elastic thru. This helped with two things. First, it allowed the waist to gather evenly each time I put them on instead of relying on the drawstring. Secondly, it gave the waistband a tad more strength to hold up the weight of the pant legs on my hip.

With the hem completed, I now have a pair of pants that I can lounge in all the time.