Now I remember why I don’t like making trousers for myself. I have had my right knee and my left hip replaced. Even with the best efforts of the surgeons, this has resulted in a rather lop-sided figure, especially I notice that my right hip is higher than my left and my left leg is very slightly shorter. Fitting tailored trousers would be a nightmare but perhaps I could manage some made with a jersey fabric?

I ordered 3 metres of this lovely Chocolate Brown Ponte Roma at £6/metre from 1stforfabrics. The fabric was delivered superfast and beautifully packaged.

Included in the parcel was a free reel of matching thread. The tissue was from a sewing pattern – the front and back panel for a circular skirt. That’s great as I will be able to use it on a future dressmaking project!

Checking the measurement chart on the pattern I decided to make the XXL size – I could always take the trousers in, better to do that than make them too small! I checked the length by measuring the inseam and it was fine so went ahead and cut out the pattern.

First step was to baste in the pleats at the front, plus add the pocket bags. All straightforward.

As I had not made up this pattern before, I stitched all the seams with a long straight stitch so that I could check the fit. First fitting revealed that there was more than enough ‘wearing ease’ included in the pattern. I removed about 1 inch from each side seam and re-basted the seam. So now the trousers are nearer to a size L.

I then partially unpicked the basting stitches and used the overlocker to construct the trousers using my revised seamlines. Second fit showed that I still needed to take in the side seams slightly from hip to knee and also the back crotch was short. Lowering the curve by about ¾ inch and grading back to the original seamline did the trick. I added the waistband and inserted the elastic. I turned up the hems (the actual inseam length turned out to be 27 inches, I must be losing height!) and using a straight stitch length 3.0 on the sewing machine sewed up the hems with 2 rows of stitching ¼ inch apart.

I am pleased with the final result and depending on how these trousers wear, I may make another pair. However, I still don’t like making trousers for my ‘wonky’ figure!