Now that the fall chill is here and I need something other than my staple capris, I'm ready to sew some long pants. I have several lengths of bottomweight stretch wovens in my stash but have not been totally happy with my earlier efforts.
I have a stretch denim skirt where I put in a front fly, topstitched zipper that I reinforced with fusible interfacing and some stretch capris where I again fused interfacing but put in a side lapped zipper. They are comfortable but tend to sag a little.
I went looking on the internet today for info and found three articles. One from Threads, one from Sew News, and the third a technical bulletin for the sewing industry.
Threads: Sewing Lycra Blends
http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/t00012.aspSew News: Stretch Woven Fabrics
http://www.sewnews.com/library/sewnews/qa/aaqa0403e.htmAmerican & Efird: Minimizing Seam Puckering on Stretch Woven Fabrics
http://www.amefird.com/puckerwoven.htmMy three things to try differently will be to
1) not place the Straight of Grain line parallel to the selvage if the stretch runs that direction -- in that case I will place the pattern's SOG line on the cross grain of the fabric so that the stretch goes around my body. That means I will use one of the circumference reference lines (hip or body base) as a parallel to the selvage.
2) use an invisible zipper
3) sew using a narrow zigzag stitch
I bet similar information will be in the two fabric "bibles" by Sandra Betzina and Claire Shaeffer ... but I'd have to walk across the room to the bookshelf
to doublecheck
