A while back I complained that I couldn’t find a pattern for elastic waist pants with the right kind of pockets – that is, normal pants pockets, not side seam pockets. I finally found one. It’s a scrubs pattern. I expected the pants to be too baggy and they are but that will be easier to fix than the wrong kind of pockets. It greatly annoys me though, that of all the dozens of patterns for women’s pants there are actually only two or three styles.

The pattern is Kwik Sew 2807. Here is a closeup of the pocket.

Kwik Sew is my favorite pattern company. Their patterns are printed on opaque white paper instead of thin tissue paper. In some ways, tissue paper is preferable but the heavier paper lasts much longer, which is great for those “never goes out of style” basics. I have a Kwik Sew pattern for a simple pullover knit top that I’ve had for about 20 years and used many times and it’s still not even close to wearing out. The pattern pieces also fit back into the envelope more easily, which is probably the opposite of what you would expect. And the pattern envelopes now open on the side instead of the top which also helps make it easier to put the pieces back in. Kwik Sew has a lot of styles to choose from (at least in blouses and dresses) including simple, basic styles.

The fabric I used for the pants is stretch corduroy. This is one of my top three favorite kinds of fabric. It’s very soft and comfortable. Pants made from it are as comfortable as sweatpants and yet can look semi-dressy and it’s a little quieter than regular corduroy. I ordered the fabric from Denver Fabrics, which is actually located in Missouri, not Denver. I love this company because they have a great variety of fabrics, including lots and lots of stretch corduroy which is hard to find, but I also dislike them because they are slow. Missouri is geographically “right next door” but I get stuff from halfway across the country much faster. The wording of their confirmation emails is a little odd. I don’t have one saved that I can copy from but they say something like, “Your items will be shipped pending approval of your credit card.” Well, of course all purchases everywhere are pending approval of the customer’s credit card but that usually takes only about 10 seconds. That they would make a point of saying this makes me think that they have some kind slow, old-school verification process and that accounts for the slowness of their shipping. Another annoying thing about Denver Fabrics is that you can’t get sample swatches from them. But anyway, they have a lot of nice fabrics, including some that are hard to find so it’s worth putting up with their quirks.

I also recently finished this brightly colored flannel shirt. This is going to be one of my “brighten up a cold, gray gloomy day” shirts. Here it is with the stretch corduroy pants.

I love this fabric but I hate the pattern, which makes this extremely disappointing. I wish I had used my favorite big shirt pattern. (an old one that’s out of print now) Instead I used Butterick 5261. This is a very odd pattern. I used it because I wanted this shirt to have raglan sleeves and this is the only button front pattern I could find with raglan sleeves. (Hey, pattern companies: How about some variety, not just 50 versions of the same thing!) I straightened out the hem because I wanted a straight hem not curved. Otherwise I made it exactly according to the pattern. It turns out that the sleeves are not true raglan sleeves but sort of a hybrid between raglan and saddle shoulder and also designed for someone with way fatter shoulders than mine. But my biggest complaint about it is that the neck opening is too wide for a winter blouse. I’m going to have to use this as a layering garment over a lightweight turtleneck which was not my intention since the fabric is a nice medium weight flannel that is warm enough by itself.