Minerva Crafts Blogger Network – Chic Pants & Hoodie

Lately all I wear are lounge pants because I work from home a lot and also because I like to be comfortable. My most favorite pair are the Victoria’s Secret Boyfriend Pant. I could wear these all day, every day – and sometimes (alright, most times) I do! They are super low rise, fitted and very long (I did order a long) but the downside? They cost about $50! Crazy!! So I decided to make my own version of them. The one thing I don’t like about them are the welt pockets. So I mashed up my own pattern along with True Bias Hudson Pants’ pocket and voila!

I tried to Google what these kind of pockets are called and I don’t know? I call them “Kinda weird to sew but totally awesome to use” pockets LOL. Seriously though, do you know what they are called?

The fabric I used was this great french terry from Minerva Crafts. I adore french terry, I want to make my whole wardrobe out of it! As you can tell I really like comfortable clothes. Anyways, the description on the website did not do it justice, this fabric is great. If you want some, better hurry because stock is low!

These pants are super low rise have only the inner leg seams. I used 2″ elastic in the top band and ended up having to make the elastic shorter to stay on my body better. Apparently if it’s really low rise your butt crack wants to show every time you sit down! So taking in the elastic helped fix that.

I had some leftover fabric and decided I should make a matching hoodie. I’ve been eyeing the Hyde Park Hoodie from Peek-A-Boo Patterns for awhile now. I didn’t have enough fabric for the hoodie to be all Chic so I dug out some old black sweatshirt material I have. The pattern calls for 25% stretch knit and the Chic fabric doesn’t really have much stetch and the black had none at all. I asked on the Facebook groups and most people said to size up a full size. So between that and apparently the ease, this hoodie is way too big on me. It looks frumpy. I wanted a snug fit seeing as the pants are snug.

I love the asymmetric aspect and that it’s supposed to be fitted in the hips. I think if I would have picked the correct size to start with, I would have liked the finished product a lot better. It’s okay though because I feel like I have a lot of Chic written all over me! I gotta say though, I’m not a fan of how the hoodie looks if you just leave it open.

That being said – I do like the finished look of other Hyde Park hoodies and I think mine would have been better if I would have followed the recommendations, so that’s my fault. I will say that I did not like the instructions. I felt confused at different points and I know there are images to help but I felt they could have been better. I know this is a small independent pattern company so it may be difficult and costly for them to do that. Another thing that I missed was a pattern layout diagram, I know that is something small but it helps me when there are a lot of pieces.

I’m going to definitely make the pants again, you can never have enough comfy lazy pants. I’m going to give the hoodie another try sometime soon. I feel like it could be great but it was just me who messed it up. I will add length to the sleeves next time too.