My favourite Élénores

I just realized I never blogged about these Eléonores I made back in May 2019 (with the fabric I bought in 2018). They are my most worn pair of pants. Well they are also my only pair of pants that are comfortable to wear since I gave away all my maternity pants. Just to clarify, I'm not pregnant, just a size I've never actually bought clothes for as I was generally losing post-partum weight at this size, not settling out here for awhile.

The Éleonore pattern calls for 20% stretch but these ones have about 40-50% so are a bit more forgiving when you gain 10 lbs. Mental note I need to get out for a run tomorrow before the temperatures drop again and I'll be back on the treadmill.

I think I actually bought this fabric using some money from a biggest loser competition I won planning to make clothes for back to work. So a little ironic that they are the only pair that fit since gaining back 10 lbs but I digress. Let's focus on the sewing, shall we...

They really are my favourite fit of pants. it's exactly what I hoped for.

This photo shows the true colour of the pants. Daylight is so much better for taking pictures. The fabric for both top and bottom comes from l'oiseau fabrics based out of Calgary. 

The top is also Jalie and is the scarf-collard top. I have made this one a couple of times but the first version was a bit fail and I'm not sure what happened to the 2nd one. I think it got a couple holes I couldn't be bothered fixing because I'd made a maternity belly alteration that didn't work out 100%. 

I've finally gotten to a point in my sewing journey where I feel confident to try using more expensive and better quality fabrics to make my clothes. It means that initially it can feel quite pricey for certain garments but I do have a few tricks to get the unit price down, or feel like I get some free garments out of the leftovers.

The jegging material cost me roughly $30 for the 1.5 m I bought, but I was able to squeeze a pair of matching Éleonores for my daughter. I can't honestly say I love wearing matching clothes to her, but she does. It also has the added bonus of letting me try out techniques on smaller versions before making mine.

Yes these pants are huge on her as I made her a size H (4) but her hips actually measured a size F (2). I had traced off the pattern before actually measuring her and was too lazy to re-trace. Also bigger means she can wear it longer. I added a few inches to the cuffs and sewed it rolled up. I will take that hem out (and hope it hasn't faded too badly) when she grows. 

I also added a couple quick and dirty darts to the waist band that will be easy to remove as she grows. I put them on the outside because I thought it would be too bulky for her on the inside and she would refuse to wear the pants. 

It's not pretty but does the job and is hidden by her shirt 90% of the time. 

So total cost for the two pairs of pants... about $35 with notions.

The shirt fabric was about $19 for 1 m. I was able to get the shirt for me done and also make a pair of Julia underwear out of it and some other leftovers. I really need make more of these. They are so comfortable and stay put. Well they are a little tighter than when I first made them but still good. So I'm happy to get the two of them for about $22 worth of materials. 

Note I'm not counting patterns here as I'd previously used all three of these before. So 16 years or so into my sewing journey I'm starting to feel like I'm getting better value out of the things I'm making. There were a lot of garbage projects before this. A lot of wasted money. I'm not going to dwell on that because it was all money invested in my learning this skill over time. I'm also not going to count up how much I've spent over the years. That would just be depressing!  I'm mostly self-taught from blogs and books. If only YouTube existed when I started it would have been so much easier! Maybe I would have been willing to buy better materials earlier and actually start to love the garments I'm creating rather than just feel meh or disappointment with them.