Han Solo Pants Simplicity 9499

Here are the Han Solo pants, completed. I have used this pattern many times - for Peter's Anakin Skywalker pants last year as well as a few pairs of pajama pants. This time I made them out of stretch fine-wale corduroy.

The picture of Han Solo I was working from has him dressed in quite skinny pants, so I took a good bit out of the outseam. Given the stretch of the fabric this was no problem. They aren't "skinny jeans" but they do get at the general look of Han.

Once I had the fit correct, I sewed the outseams with a flat-felled seam. (I have no picture of this - it turned out blurry.) Then I sewed the crotch seams separately with a faux-felled seam. I found during fitting that I needed to reduce the seam allowance to 3/8" in the crotch curve, which is not enough of a seam allowance to flat-fell. I sewed the seam and then zigzagged the seam allowances together, then pressed them to one side and topstitched them down.

I used 2" wide waistband elastic in the casing - I added extra to the top of the pattern before cutting the fabric to accommodate this. Han Solo wears a belt so I had to figure out a way to make belt loops. I cut strips of fabric from my scraps that were 1 1/2" wide. I pressed them in half - wrong sides together, then turned the raw edges in to the center and pressed again. I then edgestitched along both long edges. I pinned them into place below the waistband and zigzagged them down. Then I marked the point where the belt loop should meet the top of the waistband and wrapped the loop material to the inside of the pants and zigzagged again - without catching the elastic. I trimmed the loop material and hand-stitched the cut edge to the inside of the waistband. (Phew! That's a lot to explain - I hope I did't lose you.) And, once Peter tried the pants on it became obvious that the belt loops are HUGE and need to be stitched down a bit more.

I have enough belt loop material to make a loop at the center back after Halloween. I won't do it now, because we still have to rig up a holster that attaches to the center front and the center back of the belt - and a belt loop there would get in the way. Either that or I will just remove all of the loops.

Here is the shot of Peter wearing the pants. The fit isn't great. I realized while driving yesterday hat I should have taken them in at the inseam to snug up the crotch. Oh well. Peter loves them. He wore them two days in a row to school and wanted to sleep in them, but I drew the line at sleeping in cords. That's just silly.

And here is a gratuitous shot of Clara while we were making chocolate chip cookies. She is impersonating the beater. She says it looks like a "tough guy" spinning around in the bowl.