My friend Amy from Friends Stitched Together is having a pattern tour for her Momma Quail Patterns and I gladly joined in. I love her aesthetic and attention to detail with the clothes she makes for her boys, so I knew her clothes patterns would be well designed and stylish. It was hard to choose just one to make, but in the end Bean needs more pants so I chose the Calvin Cargo Pants.
Though designed with boys in mind, these cargo pants have options for the girls in your life too. I love the funky casual look to them and as I suspected, the details are just amazing.
According to the measurement chart Bean was a 6 at the waist and hip, but 5 at the height. I decided to just make a straight 6 since these have a loose feel to them anyway and hopefully they’ll fit through the winter. One of the best suggestions in the pattern was to make a quick muslin of just the top front and back pieces before cutting everything out, sewing, doing all of that awesome top stitching, and then finding out maybe the pants wouldn’t work for your kid. I usually have to adjust the back rise of pants for Bean (she still has a bit of a booty) and especially in a pattern designed for boys I assumed I would make the adjustment. I decided to first sew the quick muslin with just the top front and back pieces to make sure. I used the real fabric since I had a bunch of it in my stash and I figured that since I basted them, the best case scenario would mean I’d only spent a quick five minutes ensuring the fit would work with the pieces I had cut out and that the worst case would mean I would need to scrap just two small back pieces of fabric.
Bean needed about 2″ extra in the back rise (taking into account the yoke and the waistband measurements as well), so I did my standard pants adjustment. The nice thing is that it doesn’t affect the rest of the pattern pieces so it’s a super easy one. Also, the pattern has lines across the rise that tell you exactly where to lengthen or shorten which takes out some of the guess work. I used the two back pieces that I had cut originally to cut out the front pocket pieces so there wasn’t any waste either.
The over all fit is so good! I love how they look on her and there’s a little room to grow which is perfect. She has full running and jumping movement in them, yet they still look a little fitted at the upper legs which is a cool style. I did the faux fly version since I wanted to use the knit cuff waistband for an even better fit on my girl. All the options in this pattern are great.
I probably should have lowered the front rise a bit, which is the other pants adjustment I usually do for her. She likes her waistbands below her belly button, but in this case I like that there’s a little extra room in front and I think it adds to the boyfriend pants look. Although your boyfriend might not have teeny hearts on his pants.
Now this is the look of utter confusion. I asked her to see if she could make a “v” with her feet because I was trying to get her to stop jumping for two seconds so I could get a non blurry picture. Well it worked to get her to stop, but she thought I was crazy.
This is her laughing hysterically about how she would possibly get her toes in the air to make the “v” I so casually asked for. I had no idea what she was laughing at, but then I started laughing too,
And then there was this. And I realized she really had no idea I meant like the ballet first position. She really thought I meant try to get her feet upward to a v shape and I was cracking up. So the pics still were a bit fuzzy, but you can see there’s plenty of movement in these pants!
Ultimately she decided this was the best method and I agreed. At least she was still for another second or two, hehe.
And then she was off and rolling around on the ground. The good news is that even with rolling all over the place, the pants still covered her bum without having to be pulled up seventeen times so that’s a BIG win. If you haven’t checked out the Calvin Cargo Pants (and shorts!) pattern you definitely should. I left out the back pockets and the AMAZING big cargo pocket cause I wanted these to have a slightly more feminine look, but if you have a boy they would be perfect! Momma Quail Patterns is having a sale through November 21st and if you used the code MQPATTERNTOUR you’ll get 30% off. This is the biggest sale she’s having in November so take advantage and grab an awesome pattern. And go visit the rest of the tour for even more inspiration:
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