So I posted a bit about these pants, but here’s the details of the construction. I started with the cigarette pants pattern from the Gertie Sews Vintage Casual book, then followed the directions for the ’40s-style wide-leg pant variation. I traced the pattern onto clear vinyl, then traced that pattern onto the pre-washed fabric.

GSVC Cigarette Pants Pattern

I followed the variation directions to widen the pants and construct the cuffs and waistband. I quickly realized that I failed to compensate for the cigarette pants’ pockets when I decided not to have pockets on my wide-legged pants. I made faux-pockets by attaching the pant side in the correct place, then turning under the edge of the pocket opening and topstitching it down.

Faux-pocket right side

Faux-pocket wrong side

After I extended the front panels, the assembly went smoothly, even the zipper! I’ve only inserted a few zippers to date, so I followed the book’s instructions for a centered zipper. It came out much neater than my previous attempts, though it’s still not perfect. I roughly followed the instructions for the waistband because I was already improvising when I cut the waistband so wide, so I couldn’t follow the instructions to the T.

Waistband & centered zipper

Waistband closure

With the waistband finished, I could check the length of the pants and shorten them (by 3 inches because I’m a midget). Then I started on the cuffs, where I improvised heavily after following the patternmaking instructions. This was again my own fault because I hadn’t read the instructions fully and thus got confused. What I ended up doing was sewing the outside of the pant fully, then sewing only half of the inside seam so I had room to insert the cuff into the seam.

Again, these steps were totally made up… I pressed down the top edge of the cuff and used iron on interfacing over the raw edge. I suppose I could have just stitched it in place, but I was improvising pretty hard core at this point.

Cuff interfacing

The cuff was laid right side to the wrong side of the pant and the bottom edge sewn.

Attached cuff

Then I pressed the seam allowances to the right side of the pant to understitch the seam. Lastly, I zigzagged the seam allowances together to reduce fraying.

Understitching

I turned and pressed the cuff and sewed the sides of the cuff to the pant and looked proudly at my pant leg….

Uneven hem

Well, yay. I unpicked all that stitching and leveled the hem, then redid all those steps successfully. Then I finished the inner leg seam, integrating the cuffs into the seam.

Even hem!

Since pants have two legs, I did the sewing, understitching, zigzagging and finishing the leg seam all over again.

Finished cuffs

At this point, I finished up a self-covered belt, did my hair and makeup and posed for the camera.

Trying to be sassy

There are some things I would like to change for my next pair of pants with this pattern. I would shorten the pattern before widening the pants for a better fit, and add a touch of ease in the hips. I’d also redistribute the 4″ of added width to add more width to the outside of the leg (3″) and less to the inside (1″) to help it hang nicer.

What do you think? Have you tried this pattern variation?