Review of Ottobre Sardegna Capris Sewing Pattern

My laptop has a really fickle keyboard. For the past few days it decided that the keys "d", "h" and "s" would not work. Do you know how hard it is to compose a sentence without those letters? The new keyboard is in the mail, but right now, since the keyboard seems fine, I'm going to take the opportunity to review the capri pants from the Feb issue of Ottobre Design.

This is how the capris are supposed to look like:

"That looks like Mrs. Kendal", says my 5 year old. Lucky, lucky Mrs. K, with her mile long legs can wear linen capris that cut off at the calves and still look well-proportioned!

I do not have longs legs, so I decided to make clamdiggers instead of capris. Hehe, I found out that the correct term for "long shorts" is clamdiggers.

All I did was to shorten the length of the legs, but other than that, I followed the pattern and instructions.

Is it wrong of me to think that capris will make me look stumpy?

This pair does not have quite the flat front, but they are very small pleats.
The suggested fabric was linen or some sort of linen blend, but I used a cotton-poly fabric from my stash. I don't even remember when I bought the fabric anymore, but if I know myself, it would not have been very expensive at all.

It's a simple 4 piece pattern, so there are no pockets.
The shorts came together easily enough, and the instructions for the zipper installation was surprisingly clear and even came with pictures. Pictures are such important tools for this visual learner! Of course, as it is with the Ottobre design instructions, there are no other pictures, so I had to try to understand the written instructions.

The only problem I had was attaching the belt part. I think it was due to user error and inexperience with sewing pants. It doesn't look bad from the outside, though.

About sizing, I used size 40 based on the sizing guide provided by the magazine. It is what it is, and there are no surprises there. Sometimes, I'm not able to trust the sizing guide provided by pattern makers, but I seem to have no such problems with Ottobre so far.

I almost made the waist size 38 and was going to grade to size 40 around the hips, but changed my mind. This was a good call, because the pants sit about 1"-2" below my natural waistline. This is usually where I like my pants to sit.

So there you go, Sardegna Capris (or rather, Clamdiggers) from the Feb Ottobre Design issue. A quick project that came together quickly.