How are your skills navigating curves with an overlocker? Mine are not great, and I seem to have a lot of trouble doing the curve around pants that have a fly extension as part of the pant front. To avoid this issue altogether I have used interfacing to enclose the raw edges, resulting in a clean finish that I’m happy with. Of course use matching thread colour and interfacing, unlike my contrasting colours for demonstration purposes.
To do this instead of fusing the interfacing to the fly extension sew the right side of the interfacing to the right side of the pant front using a 3mm (1/8″) seam allowance. Sew from the waist, around the curve and beyond the join to crotch curve by the seam allowance used in the pattern (marked in blue). Snip below the fly extension so that the crotch seam can be sewn easily. DO NOT PRESS THE SEAM!
Turn to the right side, smoothing the curve with your fingers. Now it’s time to fuse the interfacing in place. Once fused it leaves a clean finished fly extension.
From here you can complete your fly front as you prefer, but I’ll give you the method that I find the easiest for pants.
Mark the centre front line and circle for zipper stop placement (usually provided by the pattern).
Place two fronts right sides together. Sew a basting stitch (stitch length of 3.5) from the waist to dot (or cross in blue). Secure stitching with reverse stitch or stitching in one spot, then use a normal stitch length to sew crotch curve up to 2.5cm before inseam. Press seam.
Press open the fly.
Attach double sided washaway tape like Wondertape to the right side of zip on both sides. This tape is an alternative to pins that can add unnecessary bulk.
Remove paper of double sided tape on the left side of zip and place face down on fly so that zipper teeth are centred on the basted centre seam with the metal zipper stop on the circle. Sew approximately 1cm (3/8″) from the middle of the zipper teeth with a zipper foot to the right hand fly, but not through the front. Press.
Turn the zipper right side up so the right hand side of the fly is folded underneath. Topstitch 3mm (1/8″) from the fold. (I use an edge foot with a width of 0.0). Press.
Remove paper of double sided tape on right side of zip. Lay zipper down on open seam. With zipper foot sew as close as possible to zipper teeth to the left hand side of the fly, but not through the front. Press.
On the right side of the fabric mark the fly curve so that it finishes below the zipper stop. A template made from plastic or cardboard makes this easy.
Topstitch on this marked line. Press.
On to preparing the zipper guard. With right sides together sew zipper guard on bottom angled seam. Press. Turn to right side. Press. With the zipper guard fold on the right, attach double sided tape to the left hand side.
Remove paper from double sided tape and place face down so the long raw edge of the zipper guard lines up with right hand side of the zip.
The guard needs to be sewn to the right hand side fly, not the front. It’s easier to sew from the interfaced side, right along the edge of the zip using a zipper foot.
To cover the raw edge of zipper guard fold over the fly extension twice and stitch down by machine or hand. If fly extension does extend too much some of this excess may need to be trimmed before the first fold. In the following example 1cm was trimmed.
To hold zipper guard in place sew some bar tacks from the right side. Mark their position – about 1cm in length near crotch seam and above curve. Use a zig zag stitch (width 2.0 and stitch length of 0.5).
The fly front is now complete. Undo the basting stitches down the centre front, and continue sewing up your pants.
What do you think of this method? Have you tried it before? I’d love to hear your feedback.
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