Honestly, Did Bell Bottom ever go out of Style?

Hey Homebodies!

Before we even get into these looks and how I made everything let’s discuss the fact that I love these pants so much that I’ve made them twice. You already know I have a story about why, and yall are my friends so I’m going to tell you all about it. April of 2019 I participated in a fashion show for my lingerie brand and these were the pants I wanted to wear. So yall already know I ordered this fabric from Fabric Wholesale Direct, its Ponte De Roma in Hunter Green. Then comes a common mistake from me, I didn’t have enough fabric. So I ordered one more yard and paid for overnight shipping, and of course when I got the fabric they sent army green instead. I could of died, I sent a very angry email and they squared everything out but there was no way I would get the correct yard in time. I ran to Joann’s the night before the fashion show and picked up something close to this fabric and made the pants all over again. Whatever the fabric was that I got from Joann’s worked great for the outfit but it didn’t keep its integrity in the washing machine, so thank God I have these.

I didn’t use a pattern so I will try my hardest to explain how I created these pants and this super cute off the shoulder top. A designer that is very into the technical part of designing would turn their nose up at me, because I honestly used a pair of my jeans to make the top of these pants stopping around where your knee would be. I believe you can be more flexible when using stretch fabric, I would never use this method for structured non stretch pants. The bottom of the pants are basically a circle skirt. Mood fabric has a great Circle Skirt Calculator to use as a resource and YouTube is great for visual demonstrations. Depending on how dramatic you want the circle skirt to be, you can choose your fullness between a quarter, half, three quarter, or full skirt. Keep in mind that the fuller the skirt the heavier the pants will be. I did a full skirt and I honestly wouldn’t recommend it, I think half the fullness would be nice. I love the length on these pants but they could be a tad shorter because with the fullness and the length I trip over them a lot, but I am relatively clumsy.

The top is as simple as it gets, it’s pretty much three tubes. I used about one yard of Crystal Organza from (you guessed it) Fabric Wholesale Direct. This fabric is completely see thru, I thought I would be daring and wear nothing but pasties underneath but it wasn’t in my spirit so I have a bandeau top underneath. I took the measurements of my upper and lower bust and bicep and multiplied the measurement by 1.5 (now that I’ve made it I would suggest just doubling your measurements, the fullness will be nice). For a bit of character I added elastic to the elbow and wrist of the sleeves. There is a more technical way to create this shirt but why make things difficult when it can be simple.

If you have any questions please let me know, but for now. Enjoy!