Making Trousers for Men & Women

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• Author: David Page Coffin
• Published: 2009
• Format: paperback
• Started: 29 December 2025
• Finished: 30 December 2025

This isn’t as comprehensive as Shirtmaking, but it’s worth a read if you want to get ideas for sewing high quality trousers. Below are the notes I took while reading the book.

Introduction

• Focused more on details and construction methods, not fit or style.
• Fit is a huge challenge. It can consume all your efforts if you let it.
• The closer the fit the harder it is; adding ease can make it easier.
• It’s easier to draft a basic pattern than to adjust a commercial pattern.
• It’s best to make lots of garments in quick succession to gain practice.

If it looks great on the outside, I’m happy. If I can indulge my inner patch worker with an odd scrap of contrasting fabric on the inside, I’m happier still. p. 11

Chapter 1: Learning from custom and ready-to-wear garments

Examining interesting garments is to me an essential part of learning to sew. It’s a great way to discover details and construction choices I want to emulate and it gives me a useful, real-world perspective that often challenges my assumptions about how things are supposed to be done. In short, it’s a great way to develop my own garment-making standards. p. 13

• Two indications of quality construction: (1) less bulk, thinner edges, and more flexibility; and (2) imperceptible transitions from thick to thin.
• The choice of fabric matters more than anything else.
• Pieces such as the waistband can be “cut on” (part of a single piece, perhaps folded) or sewn on. The author often prefers cut-on pieces.

Chapter 2: Tools and materials

Tools & notions

• clipping scissors
• thimble
• awl
• dry iron
• wooden pressing surface
• tailor’s basting thread (no. 40)
• hemostat for point turning
• water soluble glue stick
• refillable chalk wheel
• medium-stiff brush to erase chalk
• all-polyester, 3-ply thread

Materials

You should treat yourself at least once to a for-fondling-only visit to a really expensive clothing store, both to feel the fabrics and to check out the details and the finishing. […] Consider this necessary training for yourself as a garment maker; progress in any craft is as much a matter of constantly raising one’s standards as it is of refining one’s skill. p. 34

• Wool is the best, but very expensive.
• Use the best garment-quality silk-like fabric you can find for pockets.
• Use thinner lining for back pockets if you never actually use them.
• Self-fabric means using outer fabric for interior or hidden uses.
• There are four uses for interfacing: (1) straight-grain stability where outer fabric is on bias; (2) increase stiffness over a section enough to fold a precise shape; (3) fasten down seam allowances into a precise shape; and (4) increase density or body of too thin or too transparent fabric.
• Fusible interfacing can be a problem in washer and dryer.
• For waistband reinforcement, less is more.

Chapter 3: Basic construction

• A master pattern or sloper is a basic pattern with no details at all, just fit.
• The styled pattern contains all the details.
• Start by overcast-stitching the edges of pant pieces.
• Typical sequence: darts, pockets, front closure, side seams, waistband, pleats, inseams, center-back seam, hems.
• Pros don’t use 5/8ʺ seam allowance everywhere, they use whatever is best for that seam, often going down to 1/4ʺ.
• Pros always think in terms of seams, not the cut edge.
• Outlets or inlays give extra seam allowance for future alterations or seamless facings.
• Don’t cut out things until you need them; delay decisions if possible.
• The author prefers to establish hem by eye when trying on finished pants.
• “Staying the fork” adds squares folded in triangles to the crotch area.
• “Piecing the fork” makes the back crotch point from a separate piece.

Chapter 4: Pockets

• Pocket bag styles: A (side fold), B (bottom fold), and C (two piece).
• The author prefers A for front and B for back.
• Turn them to encase the raw edges inside.
• Front pockets can be on-seam, slant, or welt.

Chapter 5: Fly fronts

• Three goals for good fly: (1) hide zipper completely, (2) ensure overlap topstitching is smooth, (3) thin, flat, and flexible.
• Women’s pants usually have extensions at fly opening that are cut-on rather than sewn-on. This is always better unless you need zipper to go past straight part to curved part (which they never do nowadays).
• Women’s pants often don’t have a fly shield: a strip of fabric covering zipper teeth from inside.
• The author prefers metal zippers over plastic mainly because the tapes are usually more flexible and fabric-like.
• There are several ways of attaching zippers (underlapping, folding, etc.).
• Fold zipper tapes out of the way when topstitching zipper to avoid bump.

These details are the kinds of things I enjoy tinkering with, but I won’t be offended if you decide that my nitpicking goes off the charts here. p. 87

• The author usually leaves interior raw edges very lightly finished with zigzag or overcast; consider also rayon seam binding.
• Button flies are not that different from zipper flies.
• Use four buttons, or even three. There are special 22L trouser-fly buttons that have grooves for threads and no rims.
• Use keyhole buttonholes for everything on pants (flies and pockets). They prevent distortion when under strain.

Chapter 6: Waistbands

• The waistband provides strength, stability, and security.
• When doing a sew-on waistband, the author likes it to be divided at center back and faced, not folded.
• Hook-and-eye closures can be sew-on or (preferred) clamp-on.
• An “extended waistband” is another option.
• The author is obsessed with milliner’s petersham.
• Without petersham, you can use the front pockets as finishing, and for the rest of the waistband use scraps of pocketing fabric.
• Most belt loop instructions catch in waistband seams and fold over top of the band, but author doesn’t like that.
• The author attaches loops individually, setting 3/8ʺ down from band edge.
• Do belt loops at the very end and stitch through all layers.
• Loop strips cut on selvedge don’t need to be turned, only topstitched.
• Typically pants have 7 loops: one at each side seam, one at center back, and one in middle of each waistband quadrant.
• Instead of a plain loop, you can do a shaped loop with a triangular end topstitched down, or a buttonhole loop.

Chapter 7: Refinements

• Some tips on lining flaps and how to turn them out nicely.
• Joining legs at back crotch seam can be easier if before sewing, with RS out, reach into top of one leg and out through its hem and grab both hems and pull them back together through the leg, making it easy to access entire center back seam.
• Shaping tip 1: stretch entire center back crotch seam while stitching it to protect stitches there from breaking when worn (common to stitch twice).
• Shaping tip 2: ease front onto back at the inseam from the knee to the crotch by stretching the back while stitching the inseam.
• Felling is the only handstitching the author does on a regular basis.
• When tying off threads, try wrapping them around one another three times before knotting.

Chapter 8: Learning from projects

• Hand picked or picking means pick stitch.
• Various examples of casual and dressy pants.