Percy Puffy Pants: Sewing Instructions
Notes and Tips
Percy can be made short or long, cuffed or uncuffed, and flared or unflared. If you leave off the cuff, you’ll have to hem the bottom edges according to your own preferred method.
Percy’s amount of flare is not determined by a single angle or circle ratio, the way a circle skirt like Sandy does it. Instead, the flare amount is a percentage option, relative to the original, unmodified width of Titan at the length you specify. 250% flare at 100% inseam length will give you much less angled pieces than 250% flare at 10% inseam length, but when sewn up, they’ll have about the same volume of puff at the cuff.
If you make Percy long, the cuffs will be roomier relative to the circumference of your lower leg or ankle. You can easily cut the cuffs shorter to make the bottom of the pants narrower, but if you make them shorter than your heel circumference, you’ll need to add a short slit up the side of the pant leg and a closure on the cuff itself. Look to Cornelius for a good example of how to do this.
Because of the way the fall front is constructed, the pockets are non-optional. I also made them big. Mine can hold a small paperback or a whole can of pringles. The pockets are meant to be as deep as you can reach into comfortably without having to bend your spine. To make this more precise, you can take one more vertical measurement, from your waist to where your fingertips fall on your upper leg when you stand at rest. Compare that to Percy’s “Pocket Depth” option and adjust as necessary.
Assembly
Fold and baste the front pleat
The front piece has 3 short dotted lines marked along the waist seam. Transfer these lines to your fabric. Fold it so that the first and third line are touching each other, right sides together, with the crease at the second line. Press the flap of extra fabric away from the pocket on the wrong side, towards the center crotch seam. Press flat and baste this fold in place.
Construct the pockets
Let’s take a second to evaluate what the pocket pieces all look like.
The body front pieces have a curved chunk taken out of the top outer corner. If you lay the pocket piece under or on top of this, the top corner of the pocket completes that corner of the waist and outseam. The pocket facing matches the pocket piece along the sides and bottom of the pocket bag, but it’s also missing that corner.
If you lay all three pieces on top of each other in the way they’ll be constructed, it’ll go:
- pocket piece (visible only on the top corner)
- pocket facing (completely invisible from the front)
- front (completely visible from the front)
Take all 4 of your invididual pocket and pocket facing pieces and zig-zag stitch, overlock, or serge the curved edges on the bottom and left of the pattern pieces. The parts of the pocket that will be enclosed in the waist, the outseam, and the curved pocket edge don’t need to be finished this way, but it won’t hurt anything if you do.
Take one front piece and one pocket facing piece. Lay the front piece right side up, and lay the pocket facing piece on top of it right side down, aligned along the pocket curve. Sew with a straight stitch along the pocket curve.
Clip along the curve to free up the seam allowance - carefully - then open the two pieces out flat like a book. Press the seam allowance towards the pocket facing piece. Next, we’re going to understitch the seam allowance. Sew the seam allowance down to the pocket facing piece with a straight stitch along the length of the pocket curve. This will keep the seam from rolling and showing the pocket facing from the front.
Fold the pocket facing piece around to the wrong side of the front piece and press the pocket curve seam.
Baste the top of the pocket facing to the top of the front piece at 1/2 the seam allowance.
Lay the front piece down so the front piece is wrong-side up and the pocket facing is right-side up. Place the pocket piece on top of the pocket facing, right side down.
Sew the bottom curved edge of the pocket and pocket facing together, right sides together, from where they join the outseam to the notch on the inner edge. Backstitch at that notch thoroughly, or even sew a bar-tack. This one point will take a lot of the strain when you take the pants on or off.
Baste the pocket, pocket facing, and front together along the outseam, from the bottom of the pocket pieces up to the edge of the pocket curve.
Repeat all that on the other front piece. The pockets are done!
Assemble the body
For all the body seams, you have a choice of how you want to finish them. You can either zig-zag stitch or serge the seam allowances together on the inside of the pants, or you can trim down one half of the seam allowances and flat-fell them. The choice is yours - just pick one method and apply it to every seam you sew in this section.
Sew the front pieces to the back pieces along the outseams, right sides together.
Fold the combined leg pieces in half, right sides together, and align and sew the shorter inseams.
You now have two leg tubes. They might be more like leg disks, depending on how wide your flare is. Examine these tubes closely and make sure you can identify which side is the bottom, which side is the top, and which part of the top is the waist vs the cross seam.
Put one leg inside-out around the other leg, right-side out. This will allow you to align the cross seams, right sides together, along the top of the tubes. Pin and sew the cross seam, then sew the cross seam again. You do not want the cross seam popping open on you.
Prepare the waist
Your main fabric waist pieces are:
- 2 long curved waistband back pieces
- 4 short curved waistband side pieces
- 2 medium curved waistband front pieces
Your interfacing waist pieces are:
- 1 long curved waistband back piece
- 2 short curved waistband side pieces
- 1 medium curved waistband front piece
First, you’re going to fuse each interfacing piece onto the wrong side of its corresponding main fabric piece. Take it slow and make sure to get a good stick.
Take your two front pieces - one interfaced at this point, one not - and sew them together, right sides facing, along the top and sides. Trim the seam allowance at the corners, turn it right-sides out, and press it flat. Your waist front piece is completed!
The rest of the waist is going to be one long curved strip, connected waist side - waist back - waist side. Sew the interfaced waist pieces together first, connecting the waist side and waist back at the side seams, right sides together. Press these seams open flat. Then do the same thing to the non-interfaced waist pieces.
Lay the two long waist sides together, right sides facing, and sew along the side and top seams. Trim the seam allowance at the top corners and clip the curve along the curved top edge. Turn this long piece right sides out and press flat.
Attach the waist
If you look closely at the body of your pants right now, you’ll see that the top waist edge is effectively in two pieces. The center front is its own piece, going from the edge of one pocket curve to the other. The pocket facings are basted to the inside of this. The pocket pieces themselves and the backs form another longer curved waist that the front waist lies over. The open top edges of the pocket bags let this front piece fold down and forward like it will when the pants are unbuttoned.
Let’s start with the front piece because it’s shorter. Take your interfaced, folded, and pressed front waistband piece and pin the side of it that has the interfacing to the center front waist of the pants, right sides together, matching the notches along the bottom of the waist piece to the pleats. Fold and press the waist and seam allowances away from the body so the seam allowances are tucked up inside the waistband.
Turn the pants around to look at the inside of the waistband. Fold the seam allowance on the other side of the waistband piece up inside the waist piece, so the raw edge lines up with the raw edges of the seam allowance already present, and the fold lines up with the line of stitching that attached the waist front. Pin this thoroughly. For a more invisible finish, you can whip-stitch this folded edge down to the inside of the pants. For a faster finish, you can just do a straight stitch a small distance up from the edge - half or a quarter of your usual seam allowance - sealing all the seam allowances together on the inside of the waistband and leaving a row of stitches visible just along the bottom of the waistband.
Press that flat and admire your work. Then do the same thing with the longer back and sides piece. The seams attaching the back to the side pieces align with the side seams of the pants body, and the notches along the back align with the notches on the top edge of the back pieces.
Attach the cuffs
Suggested modification: If your pants are longer than the thick part of your shin and flared, the cuff that Percy generates will be a lot wider than your ankle. Percy’s cuff is guaranteed to fit over your heel, but if you want a closer fitting cuff at the ankle, it’s easy to draft yourself. You’ll need slits on the bottom of the outseams and a button or other closure on the cuff. Look at Cornelius for guidance.
Fold the cuff pieces width-wise, right sides together, and sew the short edges together to make each cuff into a cylinder. Press these seams open flat.
If your pattern uses spread, the bottoms of the leg tubes will be substantially longer than the cuff pieces. You’ll need to gather them to fit. I mark the inseam, outseam, center of the front panel, and center of the back panel on the bottom of the legs, then run a gathering thread all the way around the bottom edge. Place the cuff piece around the bottom of the leg piece, right sides together, so the cuff piece extends upwards and inside-out up the bottom of the legs. Pin those quarter marks before pulling the gathering thread to carefully gather the bottom of the leg down to the length of the cuff. Wiggle the fabric around to distribute the gathers evenly between each pin, pin them down more thoroughly, and sew with a straight stitch around the bottom of the cuff.
Turn and press the cuff and seam allowances down off the bottom of the leg. Then turn the leg inside-out and fold the cuffs over, aligning the folded edge with the line of stitching the same way you did for the waist. Finish the same way you did for the waist, then press the top and bottom of the cuff thooroughly.
Finish with buttonholes and buttons
The front waist piece has markings for buttonholes on it. If your buttons are a different size, make the buttonholes a different size, but make sure that the outer edges of the buttonholes stay the same distance from the outer edges of the waistband piece.
You could just sew buttons right onto the button marks on the waistband sides, but I recommend putting the pants on first. Put pins through the front panels into the side panels and adjust as needed so the waist fits how you want it to. Give it a bit of time to make sure you like the fit. Sit down, stand up, go for a quick walk wearing them. When you’re sure about how you want the front panels to overlap, mark through the buttonholes onto the side pieces, then unpin, take the pants off, and attach the buttons where you marked. If you decide the waist isn’t quite right later, you’ll have a lot of freedom to adjust the fit by simply moving the buttons.
If you want, you can attach more buttons on the cuffs just for aesthetics.
And you’re done!