Ninni Culottes - Red Ikat

Pattern/Technique: Ninni Culottes by Named Patterns in size 50

Modifications: Used the Zanzibach pocket insertion method (saved in Google Drive)

Materials: 2.5 yds of red cotton ikat (42” wide) purchased on Etsy

Cut 38” of 1 1/2” elastic and overlapped the ends by 1”

New skills: n/a

Lessons/Notes: I sewed a little too far when connecting the waistband ends so the slot for inserting the elastic was a bit narrow. I worked around this by folding the elastic in half before clipping on the bodkin to make a taper. I also used 1 1/2” elastic which was probably too wide for the waistband—it needed a bunch of finagling to get through the waistband—next time I’ll use 1 1/4”.

All these elastic shenanigans ended up being a blessing in disguise because I learned that the red dye from my fabric was transferring onto the white elastic despite pre-washing my fabric. I ended up deciding to not take these on my vacation to hot & humid Tulum, MX where I’d risk red stripes on my white shirts. I’ll run these through a couple washes to let any residual dye come out before wearing them.

What I'd do differently: n/a

Care: Machine wash cold, tumble dry low.

Ninni Culottes 03

Pattern/Technique: Ninni Culottes by Named, size 50

Modifications: No mods. Used the Zanzibar pocket tutorial (see last Ninni post) that I saved to my Drive (Resources folder).

Used 1 1/4” woven non-roll elastic, cut to 37” with 1” overlap to get a 36” waistband. Added zigzag (2.1W and 2.0L) topstitching at 1/2” from top & bottom of waistband, which resulted in a final circumference of 38”.

Materials: 2.75 yds (44” wide) Ruby Star Warp & Weft Holiday.

New skills: n/a

Lessons: Add bartacks on the edge of pockets after sewing the pocket pieces together. The bartacks will make it hard to get your needle all the way to the edge of the pocket.

I used Wondertape to baste each of the pocket pieces in place on the outside seam which worked great; I was also extra careful to position the tape at the very edge of the flat pocket piece so that the adhesive would be in the seam allowance and wouldn’t make my needle gummy.

On this set of Ninnis I serged the edges of the outside leg pieces before attaching the pocket pieces, and in the future I’ll also serge the flat edge of the pocket pieces too before attachment. (I had a small mishap trying to serge the attached pockets where I serged into the pants fabric itself and had to rip out a small section.)

What I'd do differently: Because the wrong side of the fabric has a lot of floats, I’m a little concerned about these wearing/breaking from friction in the crotch. I didn’t add a lining at this time, but I may add one in the future if this becomes an issue.

I also tried styling a matching set with the Seamwork Bo top (last slide in gallery) and I don’t think the small pattern quite works. I’d love to try again with a larger print pattern.

Care: Machine wash cold, dry flat.