Trendy Top & Pant

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Well, I think it's kind of trendy, anyway. I've been thinking about the whole leggings or no-leggings question since it's been on Stitcher's Guild for a while, and I went so far as to buy a pair of leggings and wear them around the house. I love them for the comfort, but I haven't quite been able to get out of the house in them, and I think that's probably a good thing. I like the general idea though, so I thought maybe I'd try some very narrow pants. This is what I came up with, along with the top from the print knit I got in California.

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I haven't quite decided if it's better with or without the belt. I think it needs something, and I thought of pockets or something, but I hate to break up the print, as I think it's very graceful, but perhaps the belt breaks it up anyway?

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The top is FSG#1960 once again, but with the funnelneck from Christine Jonsen's Travel Basic #3 added. I also lengthened it by a couple inches, as I think it is imperative that a top worn with these pants must fall below the rear.

Since the pants are a kind of trial pair, I used some old doubleknit fabric I had, and pulled out a couple of simple knit pant patterns. This one (Stretch&Sew #100) has an 11.5" hem circumference. I faced the hem, and then used a twin needle to stitch around once as an edge-stitch, and once at hem length. Together, this gives it a little bit of a band effect, and I remember seeing this kind of finish on Givenchy knit pants in the 1980's. I would think about putting a vent in the hem if I make more of these, which I think I will. I think a fairly high spandex content would be appropriate as well. This fabric has none, and I don't expect it to hold up terribly well, at least in the knees. I'm basically happy with the style though. They could be a little narrower toward the thigh, and that's something I may experiment with. I feel comfortable wearing these however, which is a good change from leggings.

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Textile Trends

I found an interesting link to some large scale images of trend textiles shown at the Los Angeles International Textile Show in April. Very interesting and a nice overview of 11 identified trends such as Into The Wild, Marrakesh, Gray Days, etc. Here's a small taste with thumbnails from several of the categories. I would imagine that these fabrics are just now coming into the retail market if they're here at all yet.


You can see larger images on their website, and there are more fabrics in each category than usually shown in trend reports.

This is from an interesting publication, The California Apparel News.net