Color Blocked Lounge Pants

When my Grandma Nina came for a visit this fall she brought me a black garbage bag of stretchy knit fabrics that she wasn't going to use.  I was tremendously pleased as I don't have much knit in my fabric stash...and, as the last several Me-Made-Mays have proven, I've really fallen for stretchy, comfy garments these days.  So, win-win.  Grandma got rid of unneeded clutter and I acquired a much-desired stash of knits to play around with.

I completed my first project from the Grandma Stash last week--a color blocked pair of lounge pants, perfect for kicking around the house on the weekend.  I sent a photo to my mom and she declared them to be "wild and colorful."  Clearly, right up my alley.  :)

"Wild and colorful" indeed!

I've been trying to find more functional purposes to satisfy my creative/sewing itch.  I've certainly made more dresses than I need at this point.  (Though I have two more in-the-works right now, so...)  As such, when I noticed that my lone pair of sweatpants was seriously worn out after a decade or more of use I was pretty excited.  A replacement was in order.  Hooray!  A functional sewing project for me!

I dug around in the knits until I found the butterflies-on-a-white-background fabric.  That struck me as looking like swell loungewear/pajama material to me.  There wasn't enough of it for a full pair of pants though, plus it was fairly thin fabric.  I wanted something both sturdier and less transparent for the crotch area of my lounge pants.  So, I kept digging.  The purple and orange fabrics were both remnants, too, but between the three there was more than enough for a pair of Beth-sized pants.  

A close up of the butterfly fabric. 

I used the Simplicity pattern that I have modified for for Matt's boxers and then just eyeballed it for the legs.  As I was working I recalled that I've actually used this same pattern, in conjunction with an existing pair of pants, to make Matt some lounge pants back in 2015.  I've sure gotten a lot of miles out of that Simplicity pattern.  I now think I might try making those View 1 pants, too.  I've never made any proper fitted pants.  Just boxers and lounge pants.  And a billion skirts!  Okay, okay, I exaggerate.  Still, it would be cool to break new sewing ground.

Simplicity 7501 is the pattern I modified for my purposes.

There was a moment, as I was finishing up the lounge pants, where I thought:  "Oh, no...  Did I make accidental Denver Broncos colored pants or something?"  That was really NOT what I was going for, but the color blocking looked so "sporty" to me.  Matt assured me that Denver was orange and blue, not purple.  He even went so far as to look up the color combo for me.  There are sports teams who use purple and orange, but not many and mostly at the college level.  So, it is what it is.

Lounging in my lounge pants.  :)

I love how much volume the legs have, poofing out over the ankle cuffs in a mild harem pant style.  I added extra length to the legs explicitly for this purpose.  Having elastic at the bottom cuff also keeps me warmer because there is no draft on my ankles.

I'm happy.  I think I'll make a second pair, actually.

It is a Winter Wonderland out there today.  Heck!  We might even have a White Christmas.  Fingers crossed!