Picasso knit pants

This project fits me to a T right now. My broken knee cap has healed enough to hobble around without the brace or the crutches. Hooray!

The Picasso pants from the Sewing Workshop are a favorite of mine. I've had this nice light weight rayon knit sitting around my sewing room for a while. I imagined it as a jacket, then a top, but finally Picasso pants. And I'm so glad I did.

During these COVID times, I do like comfort clothes, don't you? It fits with my COVID hair. Honestly I'm not into highly fitted clothes anytime, but especially now, I want soft clothes that make me feel good.  These do not disappoint.

I made a size M and probably could have gone down to a size S as there's not much to fit in these pants. But in order for them to look the way I imagined them, I wanted them to drape and flow. 

These pants have Linda Lee's signature waistband that is flat in the front. The instructions are to use elastic on only the gathered part of the waistband. I think the center front waistband needs more support than that, so I always insert elastic into the complete circumference, anchoring with vertical stitching between the two front pleats. 

Because I've made these so many times, it was a quick project. I did change the pocket. In my most recent versions of the Picasso pants, I've added a pocket in the side panel by piecing it vertically and sewing a pocket bag to the wrong side before attaching to the front and back panels.

As you may know, Linda Lee of the Sewing Workshop does these free FB live presentations each Tuesday. During one, she mentioned adding patch pockets to the side panels of the Picasso. Well, duh. Mine with the pocket bag on the inside does not look any better and it's certainly more work. So these have the patch pockets incorporated into the side seams of the side panels. 

Because this is a fairly light weight knit, I had to work to avoid sucking the fabric into the stitch plate at the beginning. I used a ball point needle and polyester thread, as is usual for me with knits. I could have changed the stitch plate to a straight stitch plate, but this quilting trick worked just great.

If you quilt, you are probably familiar with the idea of a leader patch and trailer patch. This saves (a very small amount of) thread but it also allows you to keep the foot lowered as you transition from one seam to the next. And it worked like a charm to keep the knit from being sucked under.

As a plus, you end up with all these fun little squares that should become part of a fiber art project.

I now live in these pants, worn here with another comfort piece, the Bristol top in Alabama Chanin cotton knit. 

Happy holidays to you!