I have plans to make the Helen’s Closet Donovan skirt and I had the idea to try it in a border print so I went to trusty Fabric. Com and searched for floral rayon border prints on sale and found a lovely navy print by Alexia Marcelle Abegg.

I bought a large piece and once I had it I realized that it also might make a great pair of swishy Rose pants. The only big challenge is that the border print goes vertically not horizontally and I wanted to make sure that the two legs matched. I ended up laying out my pattern pieces horizontally and lined up the bottom of the pant pieces straight along the selvage instead of the top to make sure that they would match when they were sewn. I had just enough fabric going widthwise selvage to selvage for the length of the pants which was really lucky. Once cut out, I realized that the fabric was really slippery so I assembled them slightly differently than the Rose pattern directs. I cut the front waistband the same size as the sewn pants front and sewed the front waistband to the front and the back waistband to the back and then sewed the side seams including both waistbands. I figured that I would use elastic around the whole waist and just let the elastic gather the fabric. I thought it might work because the gathers are pretty gentle. I had a piece of elastic that wasn’t quite as wide as the waistband so I improvised and sewed a 3/8 seam at the top of the waistband to create a little paper bag waist effect.

Pinning the front waistband to the top of the pants. I wasn’t sure how it would work with the pockets but the fabric is so flowy that it is fine with the pockets being gathered as well. I did not use any interfacing because I didn’t want the fabric to be stiff.

In order to have the elastic on hand fit the waistband, I sewed a seam at the top of the waist before inserting the elastic. It worked great.

it ended up creating a subtle paper bag waist effect

Pants before hemming:

And after worn with my Gemma tank which I cropped and am loving:

I am really happy with how they turned out. I ended up hemming them to preserve the entire border but they are a bit too long so one of these days I will unpick the hems and take them up a bit. I plan to make another pair in this moss green tencel twill. They are super comfortable and bridge the gap between dressy and casual and doing the waistband in the two pieces was just easier for me to negotiate with the slippery fabric. These are my third pair of Rose pants. You can see my ikat pair here and my linen shorts here.  I am a fan!

Thanks for reading!