Trial by microfiber

Yeah it was a bit late, and I admit that I was pretty good about finding excuses to avoid the task because it was something I really was not looking forward to. Alterations are not all that much fun anyway and this ended up being far more fiddly and painstaking than I had originally hoped.

There were two issues:

The pants were to long and the waistband was too snug.

I tackled the waistband first. The pants were constructed with a front zippered fly with a button closure and a sewn on waistband with elastic that was stitched in place.

I originally thought I could just open up the inside of the waistband seam, take out the elastic and put in a slightly bigger piece of elastic.  It was still a fair amount of work because the elastic was stitched in place.  

But the thin tight microfiber and the tiny black stitches were difficult to remove.  It took me several days to do this because my eyes would just get so tired, and it was difficult to do without cutting or tearing the fabric.  The stitches were well locked in place, I could not cut a stitch and rip, but rather had to cut each and every stitch.  Bummer.

Once I had the waistband apart I quickly realized that, although there was more than enough room in the pants themselves, the waistband was going to be too small and I needed extra length.  Luckily I also had to shorten the pants enough that I would have extra fabric to use for the waistband.  The original waistband was in one piece from front tab to front tab and the only way I could see to get a relatively unnoticeable seam would be to put a seam at one side seam and insert a new piece in one half of the side seam to the front tab.  I was quite fortunate that the width of the pant leg accommodated that fix.   

This meant that I had to spend quite a few more hours detaching the waist band completely from the pants.  After this was accomplished I cut the original waistband a bit, attached the new piece from the leg, placing the new seam at the right side seam and then reattached the waist to the pants with new elastic.  

It sounds simple enough but I found working with this fabric difficult.  It seems that my sewing skills really are a bit rusty.  And I was really hoping to ease my way slowly back into sewing.  

In the end I think I did it quite well and am in fact rather tickled with myself.  Looking at the front of the pants, I don't think you can tell that the waistband has been removed and reattached, nor do I think the seam at the right side is really noticeable.  And I am really thrilled beyond belief at how evenly I managed to do the final top stitching at the edge where the waistband meets the pants. It is such a simple thing for me to be so excited, but I am usually far too impatient with this and even if the outside looks even, the inside edge of the waistband wobbles all over the place.

As a reward to myself, last night I stitched up a little scarf from a small piece of burnout velvet that has been sitting in my stash for I don't know how many years.  Pathetic isn't it that something that took only about 10 minutes of sewing would wait for years?  No excuse to let that happen again.  If I can fix those pants that nicely I think it is about time I let myself sew for myself again.