When the Daughter Judy Coe trousers were released last summer, they went immediately on my list and I even bought purple linen for them. Of course, it took me 9 months to get to them, and another 2 months more to write about them since I forgot about the photos!
Coe trouser: tapping into the barrel leg trouser trend
I’m a slow adopter when it comes to trends. Maybe I’m boring because I tend to stick to shapes that I know and like, but I’m also never sure whether something is here to stay. Big sleeve blouses? Took me 1-2 yrs to get on board and thankfully they’re still around now! But barrel-leg trousers? I was excited to see them on other people but had doubts for myself. So I tried twice to buy RTW barrel leg jeans to try out the silhouette and couldn’t get them to fit, so what do sewists do in these situations … well, better go back to the pattern you bought already and make it yourself.
Fabric choice
I had picked linen because it has a softer silhouette than e.g. denim so I didn’t feel like I was fully committing to an exaggerated barrel leg look. I found a random bit of cotton lawn that a friend gave to me for the pockets and then decided to see if I could fussy cut the leopard.
The fussy cutting worked well as you can see… fabric-wise I think it would have worked better if it was heavier-weight linen because it would hang more nicely. But never mind, these are very comfortable for summer!
Coe trouser line drawing and features
The Coe trouser features a zip fly, side seam pockets, back patch pockets plus a self-fabric belt and belt loops. The side seam swings towards the front, so in my opinion this sewing pattern works less well with medium/large printed fabric unless you want to be doing a lot of pattern matching. I skipped the belt!
Sizing and fitting
There are two separate size ranges. From the DD range I chose size 2 at the hip and size 6 at the waist*. I wasn’t sure about the best way to manage this due to the location of the side seam (deliberately shifted towards the front), so I asked Chelsea the owner of Daughter Judy. What I did following her advice:
- Start with size 2 overall, then reduce the back darts and add to back crotch to get the extra 5cm I wanted for the waist.
- The waistband is curved and in one piece so I just added 2.5cm to either side of the CB.
- I made the changes on paper before sewing a one-legged toile as per the top down centre out method to double check the fit (see my comments on that on this post about another a pair of pants).
- Then all I needed to do after that was reduce the leg length by a few cm. This is worth checking given the tapered leg. Best tip I can give is to put on the shoes you intend to wear with them since the heel height is different even on trainers!
*Note: I also made the Daughter Judy Adams pants twice before and there I have a size 4 waist with a size 2 hip. The instructions say the fit is relaxed and that you can size up or down for comfort. Whereas the Coe says slim through the waist and hip. So size 6 at the waist felt like a good starting point for my waist circumference (hovers between 72-74cm).
Pocket gaping
When I put on the trousers I saw the point of the top of the side seam pocket is about 1cm above a bony bump, i.e. guaranteed gaping. I had seen gaping pockets from various posts – Stacy’s post here goes into detail about it. Also saw in the instructions that there was a mention of pocket stays … but I was far too lazy to do it. Turns out the pocket sits quite far forward so it doesn’t actually bother me that much. But here’s the picture and you can see for yourself:
Verdict: Coe trouser
The Daughter Judy Coe trousers are SUPER comfortable: relaxed leg and because I sized up enough at the waist. Really, really grateful that Chelsea took the time to help me out with that.
I’ve worn these quite a few times now and there’s been no bike incident (getting the right leg stuck in the chain is my biggest concern) and doesn’t appear to be any risk either. The biggest annoyance is actually the ironing after washing!!!
As for the barrel leg? Well, I quite like it! This pair is in purple so that’s a guarantee to myself that I’ll wear it. But let’s just say that the full-on horseshoe trousers are definitely NOT for me, this feels adventurous enough!
Till next time
Kate xx