I got a couple of RTW pairs of culottes back when I wanted to wear skirts but we were in the baby gate phase of our lives. There are no baby gates in the house now, but I still like the combination of swish and practicality in a nice, wide-legged set of culottes.

When I mentioned my plan to make culottes, the first question from the fam was, What are culottes?   “Skirts with legs,” I said. My kids were quick to point out the pairs I already had. But as I told them, I didn’t have a black pair.

Which brings us to the Winslow culottes. I read the hack tutorials, including the half-elasticated hack and the fully elasticated hack, and decided I wanted a hybrid. I am full-on Team Elastic Waist, but the hacks recommended taking a full two inches off the sides of each pattern piece, and I didn’t want to lose the swish. I opted to keep my pattern pieces unaltered and deal with the ease in a different way.My measurements fell between 8 and 10. I traced a size 10, view C length. Inspired by the Chandler trousers, I did four pleats in the front of the culottes, which are about 4 inches long each, which removed about 7-8 inches of ease at the waist. I altered the front to include scoop pockets, which are secured at both the waist and the side seam. The scoop pockets limited how much fabric I could pinch out in front with the pleats. The total length of the front half ended up being about 20 inches with the pleats, longer than my half waist measurement of 14.”

I had 1.5 inch elastic, and in order for that to work with the waistband width, I bound the edge with bias tape (again, inspired by the Chandler trousers), and hand sewed it down on the inside rather than stitching in the ditch.I have a habit of doing all types of silliness to conserve fabric or get the finishes I want (piecing together 3 pieces of fabric for the waistband, hand sewing things) but not thinking to add a 1/4 inch to a waistband width to accommodate the elastic I have on hand.

I didn’t add any pleats to the back, trusting the gathers would take care of my 53″ or so total waist opening. The gathering did cinch up the fabric, but the resulting waistband was bulky. It could have been one of those things I would cool off about after putting the culottes in sewing timeout, but it was preventing me from feeling really satisfied with the project, so the day after I finished the culottes, I woke up at 6 a.m. and went out to my chair in the garden and started seam ripping. I added 6 pleats of 1.25″ of fabric on the back half of the waistband, spaced two inches from the center back and from each other, to remove 7.5 inches of bulk from the waistband. The pleats are just a couple inches long, since I wasn’t going for flat in the back like I was with the front.I’d sewn through my elastic to hold it in place, but taking everything out, marking and securing the pleats, and putting everything back together again took less time than I thought it would. I redistributed the gathers along the entire waistband and it made all the difference in how I felt about the final result. The pleats with the elastic give it more of a finished look, but I can still pull them over my hips easily, and that is the most important part – ease of use.When the culottes were finished except the hem, I tried them on to check the length. I cut 3.5 inches off the hem before finishing them as instructed (I’m just shy of 5’5″). I read somewhere something about someone’s mom always telling them to always hem by hand for a nice finish, and for whatever reason, it stuck with me. I’ve hand finished nearly every hem since then, with no regrets.

This is a project I’m unambiguously happy about. The alterations gave me just what I was looking for with nice, subtle details. The black linen meets two of my sewing goals for this summer – make neutral clothes that go with my existing wardrobe, and make more clothes out of linen.

Worn with a RTW cardi from H&M, and a self-drafted tank based on an H&M tank I got years ago. It’s bound with 1/4 in. self bias at the arms and neck, hand hemmed, and made of rayon I got from Hawthorne Supply Co. Besides being beautiful, the fabric is buttery soft and didn’t fray.