Embroidered Trousers

These are some simple linen trousers with a drawstring and elastic waist. They are really basic and easy-to-wear. I took the pattern from my favourite trousers, and just made one pattern piece. As I didn’t bother with pockets and just had a simple waist these trousers are made from four identical pieces of linen.

For the waist, I folded over the top of the trousers and sewed three channels.

Using a safety clip I pushed elastic into the top and bottom channel, then hand sewed them closed.

In the middle channel I used a long strip of bias binding, sewn closed, to give a drawstring waist. I added grommets, since I’ve got myself a grommet kit and everything now has grommets…

The embroidery was great fun. I downloaded some free patterns from the DMC website and used DMC embroidery floss to add wild flowers.

I didn’t have any clever way to transfer the patterns to my fabric but I found that wasn’t needed. I used chalk to draw a rough outline of the pattern, and then filled it in with thread in a semi-freehand way.

If you sew the garment first and then add the embroidery, it means that you can embroider over the seams, which I think looks great.

It does make it harder to embroider some areas, though. I stuck to the bottom of the trousers, which were easy to put into a small hoop.

End result is some simple, easy-to-wear trousers, that could be make in a very short time, if I hadn’t spent ages embroidering them.