Anita Ponti Pants...in stretch cotton (an experiment)

After the success of my most recent pair of Anita Ponti Pants I feel super keen to make ALL the Anita pants I can. After the pants alteration class at Tessuti our teacher Megan pointed out this super stretchy cotton elastaine to me and suggested that they could make a good pair of Anita's. Because I always do what the teacher tells me this fabric came home with me...

The fabric is just 140cm wide and it was a VERY tight squeeze to say the very least.  This is the closest I've come to not having my pattern pieces fit onto the fabric and I certainly had to jiggle things about quite a bit. One of the legs was sitting well into the selvage, but I thinking that's not going to stop the world spinning.  Ah well, the joys of being at the bigger end of the size scale is you need more fabric to make things fit...I blame my bum on this occasion.

I had NO trouble sewing up these pants. The fabric was a dream to sew - so stable and it pressed really nicely. Looking at the finished product though I have to say that the fabric doesn't suit the pattern...I feel the Anita's definitely needs the "softness" of a Ponti to fall nicely and sit smoothly on my body. You can see here how lumpy and bumpy things are from mid-thigh downwards probably due to the fabric being so stiff. The pants do fit well on my thighs and butt though so (mini) winning.

The only silly thing I did was make the elastic waistband WAY too big...so if I were to keep these pants I'd have to unpick the waistband top stitching and make the elastic a bit smaller (I sewed the elastic in by making a channel again, not attaching it directly via overlocker to the waistband as suggested). The elastic waistband is my main stumbling point on these pants (or on anything really...even undies). I DETEST tight things on my tummy and I'm paranoid about making my Anita's too tight....so instead I make them too big. Smart, huh? I've come home from work early before because my undies/pants have been too tight so tight elastic is NO joke.

Speaking of elastic, this is what I have used for my last two Anita pants. Prior to this I was using the ribbed, non-roll elastic and oh boy, talk about uncomfortable - it feels like a steel belt clamped onto my waist.  This elastic (pictured below) is not as stiff as the ribbed elastic, but it still feels really stiff and uncomfortable to me - ribbed for my displeasure that's for sure! I'm wondering if there is another type of waistband elastic on offer that I could be using - your advice would be VERY VERY much appreciated!

So all in all I'm not sure if this is a win...or a fail. I don't think I'll keep the pants, so some chunky waisted lady is going to be VERY happy when she goes shopping at Vinnies next week. I would LOVE to find this fabric again and make a Mabel skirt out of it...that I think would be the perfect fabric/pattern match.