[nannyem]

Has anyone flat felled the seams on this pattern? I’m making the pants for my four-year-old, using a lightweight corduroy, and I want to be sure to give the pants a fighting chance of making it through more than one wearing!

When flat felling the leg seams, is there a standard way to decide which way the seam allowance should be sewn down? With the side pockets, I’m guessing at the outer legs at least need to have the felled seams sewn to the back, but what about the inseams and the crotch seam?

Thanks for any guidance!

[Tamara]

Hi Nannyem

I have made these pants for my son in corduroy using flat felled seams – just for the fun of it! When I came to doing the outside legs seams I made sure to topstitch in the same direction (towards the back or front piece) so to keep them uniform. With the pockets I think (from memory) I did the seam flat felled including the pocket seam – weird I know but it worked. For the crotch, I did this after the inner leg seams as I did this as one long seam. Not the way the instructions say to sew the pants just swapped the points around.

Because you have 1/2 inch seam allowances it will give plenty of room to make a nice fold but I would strongly recommend lots of pinning and pressing to make sure you don’t come unstuck – especially at the crotch area as it is likely to be bulkiest. The pocket seam I treated as part of the folding side of the side seam – just make sure you pin right at that area to keep it in place.

Good luck! You’ll find that whatever the way you sew these pants the flat felled seam will provide them with giving more than one wear.

Tamara

[sayiamyou]

April has created a nice tute for this type of stitching, and I’m sure you could use it for those pants.

http://oliverands.com/blog/2011/01/flat-felled-seams.html

[nannyem]

Thanks so much, Tamara, for your help. I’ll be sure to pin and press LOTS! April’s tutorial is very helpful – I’ll definitely refer to it as I sew the pants up. I just decided to add a reinforced knee patch, so that’s next, then putting the legs together with the flat felling!

[Sarvi]

I like to flat-fell the inner leg seams, “bind” the crotch seam with bias or twill tape, and then French seam the outer leg seams. Makes for rock-solid trousers that you can flip inside out. If your material is bulky or stiff, you might want to skip the French seams, they can make that seam a little stiff, not that I’ve noticed it causing any problems.

[nannyem]

Thanks, Sarvi — that sounds like a solid way to do it as well. Do you do the bound seam with 1/4″ finished binding (with the crotch seam trimmed to 1/4″), or do you leave the 1/2″ seam allowance and use a 1/2″ binding, or do you do something altogether different? Thanks!

[Sarvi]

I trim the crotch to just a hair wider than 1/4″ — too wide and the stitching looks a bit weird from the outside. I measure the width I’ve got after I’ve trimmed it and actually lay the binding flat on top of it, like I’m appliqueing it to seam, so it lies flat rather than flopping to one side or another — this is the best photo I could find — you can see here that I stitched down a strip of bias tape and trimmed back the seam allowance to meet it. It’s been washed since and the trimmed edge has worn away.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8141/6974042994_fcfc9baa65.jpg

[nannyem]

Thanks – pic really helps!

[with love Heidi]

I’m planning on fake flat felled seams, ie. I’m going to overlock the leg seams and then press to one side and sew down the outside.