Pattern Review - Republique du Chiffon, Diego Trousers

Hello!

 Today I am very excited to bring you my latest make and it's a Christmas theme! It's the Republique du Chiffon Diego Trousers which I have made in a Christmassy red tartan wool from Minerva Crafts. I am really looking forward to sporting these on Christmas Dy this year, they're a really fun addition to my wardrobe.
In my (work in progress) sewing room teamed with Nina Lee Bloomsbury Blouse
The first thing to note about this pattern is that no seam allowances are included in the pattern which means you must trace out the pattern first and add it in. They recommend 1cm but I stuck to my usual 1.5cm. During the tracing I found an error on one of the cuff pieces in that the colour coding of the sizes had gotten mixed up so if I had stuck to the colour it had told me then my cuff would have been too small.Essentially the colour coding had been swapped around on one of the pattern pieces for a couple of sizes but easily spotted and rectified. 
I only made a slight fitting adjustment so that I graded between a smaller size on the waist and a size up on the hip. Once the pattern was ready I had the difficult task of pattern matching! With a pattern as obvious as tartan you really cannot ignore the pattern matching across major seams - centre front, side seams and centre back. I achieved this by cutting out one leg, folding back the seam allowance and lining this up to the fabric to determine where the next pattern piece should go. I'm very happy with what I achieved and believe it was well worth the effort.
The pattern itself was easy to follow and I would say good for a first time making trousers as it has an invisible zip rather than a zip fly and I didn't need to make any fitting adjustments so would say this pattern is very easy to work with. 
They looked precisely how I expected, I could not believe how well they fit around the bum just straight out the packet and the length was perfect as well! There really isn't anything I would change about this pattern other than to include a seam allowance in the pattern because that was quite laborious. 
In front of our Christmas Tree with a cheeky Pug 

I just love these trousers! I feel like a Christmas Elf when I'm wearing these but I think they could also be dressed down to have a punk-esq vibe.
Merry Christmas!!
Liz

Location: London, UK

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