Hosen Patterns from Jeans
Originally posted on the DHF BBS by Brayton Carpenter of Legendary Costume Works:
The best bet is to choose a pair of “sacrificial jeans” from your wardrobe. They should fit tight or at least snug, preferably. Using a permanent marker, draw a line around each leg at the center knee, as well as up the center back of each leg, all the way up through the center of each cheek to the top of the waist. Using the line you drew as a guide, cut off the legs at center knee. Also, cut the zipper section out of the pants. Now cut the legs apart. First, cut straight down the crotch seam to split the pants into two, separate legs. Then, split each leg up the back, using the centerline you drew as your guide, all the way to the top. Now you have the basic pants pattern! From here . . .
Lay the two legs down on your pants material. Trace around the pattern, THEN ADD A ½” BORDER AROUND ALL EDGES!! This is your seam allowance, a necessary evil! Now pick up the pieces you have just cut out and lay them down on your lining material. Trace them out (no seam allowance this time, you’ve already added it!) and cut out your lining material.
Sewing somewhat close to the edges, sew each pant leg down to its lining piece. This is known as “basting”. This just makes life easier because when you go to join the pant legs to each other to make a “pair of pants”, you will be dealing with only two separate pieces of material rather than four.
Now take one pant leg, with its lining now basted on, and turn the outer edges around (the long edges) so that you can sew the seam that will go up the center back (of each leg). When you do this, the outer pants fabric will be facing in on itself and you will only be able to see the lining fabric on the outside of the piece. Basically, we are matching “right side to right side” (the side of the outer pants fabric that will be seen when the garment is finished) at that back, center seam. Now sew up this seam, utilizing your ½” seam allowance. Once you have sewn up this seam, you will have “one leg of a pair of pants, turned inside out.” Now repeat this process with the other leg. Now take both legs and sew them to each other at the crotch. Remember, your pant legs are still inside out. What we are looking at is the inside of the garment. This means that when you go to join the legs at the crotch, don’t forget to arrange the edges at the crotch “right side to right side.” Make sure to utilize your ½” seam allowance. Also, don’t forget not to sew up any higher than where the zipper started on the original pants. Once joined, turn the whole assembly right side out. You should now have a garment that is starting to look like a pair of pants. Try them on. How’s the fit? Should be close, if not right on. For the purposes of this film, it’s most likely close enough!
Now we want to bring the top of the pants up to your “true waist”.(up to your bottom rib) To achieve this, put the pants on and measure the distance from the top of the pants up to your bottom rib. Double this measurement, plus add 1” (1/2” on either edge, for seam allowance) to get the height of the waistband, and the width will be the waist measurement of the pants themselves.
Now sew the waistband to the top of the pants. Remember that the waistband is double wide. This is so that you can fold the waistband in half to have it be double thickness for added strength. In other words, there will be no lining for the waistband, it is a wide strip of your outer fabric folded in half. The waistband will attach by sandwiching over the top of the pants. Match the edge of your waistband material to the outer edge of the top of your pants, right side to right side. Sew this down, using your ½” seam allowance, then turn up and press with an iron. Then take the opposite edge of the waistband, fold it under and press at the ½” mark, and sew this down to the inside. You will want to finish the inside edge of the “fly” by either turning the material back and sewing (probably easiest) or using bias tape or strips of pants material sewn over the raw edges.
This, of course, will go all the way up the fly, which now reaches up to your true waist with the addition of the waistband. The simplest method for closure of the pants would be to punch holes up either side of the fly (not TOO close to the edge!) with an appropriately sized straight punch or “rotary punch”, set grommets and lace them up. You can also use hook and eye closures.
Next, cut out a cod piece, and sew the bottom to the bottom of the crotch, attaching each side with buttons or lacings to the pants. The simplest cod piece, would be just a triangular piece, point down. You can always do a three-piece codpiece (two sides and a back piece) to get that more three-dimensional “stuffed” look that the landsknechts were notorious for. If you do this, be sure to slash it a little and stuff it with some of the pants lining fabric, pulling some of the lining through the slashes. Almost done!
Now you want to finish the bottom edge of each pant leg. The easiest way to do this is to simply turn the edges under and sew. For a slightly fancier way, just sew a rectangle folded in half, all the way around the bottom of each leg. Then take scissors and snip the rectangle at every inch to two inches. This will give you a nice, castellated edge. All that’s left is slashing the actual legs of the garment.
Slash patterns are up to you. Be creative. Some woodcuts and links have been provided to help you. Rows of horizontal slashes, each row varying in length, rows of diagonal slashes, alternating left rows and right rows, full length slashes from top to bottom, cutting “smile” shapes out of the front or sides, the list goes on. And remember, if one leg is slashed differently from the other- all the better!