Burda Trousers 6871 – and all those welt pockets!

Hello Sewists

I’ve made this pattern (Burda 6871) before here as part of my three piece suit (It’s a bit of a rabbit hole, but if you want to check out all the posts in the series, they’re here – ‘suitable intentions‘ – you have been warned!) and was drawn to it again for this fabric.

As there would be enough of a headache matching the check across the seams, I figured I could give myself a break and cut all the pocket welts on the bias. Not only was this going to let me off a bit of nightmare-pattern-matching, but it would ensure that my pocket welts will be seen after all the hard work of installing them! I chose this fabric because I have a lot of blue in my wardrobe and I’d like to introduce more green… this check suiting from Minerva.com should be perfect to bridge the gap between my blue and green clothes! (This isn’t a sponsored ad by the way, I bought this all by myself!)

I had just enough of this liberty fabric left over (from binding these pleated-trousers) for the pocket bags, as a side note, I also drafted the back pockets around 2.5cm (approx 1”) deeper, as I thought they were a teeny bit short on the last pair I made.

So the trick I learnt making these ones was all to do with marking the welt pockets – usually, in an effort to get everything exact, I mark every piece with the welt box, on both sides… on everything, and struggle to get them all matching up perfectly… Well, this time I just marked the centre of the welt and the start and finish points at each end on the front of the main trouser pieces only. So long as they are marked accurately, they are the only marks you need – it’s taken me a while to realise this!

The welt piece (folded in half) is 3cm deep – the seam allowance is 1.5cm, so the finished welt is also 1.5cm.

Position the raw edges of the welt up to the centre welt marking. Position the lining face down on top.

Stitch between the start and stop markings. Here’s where I trim the seams back to 0.5mm using pinking shears.

Lay the pocket facing in place and make a crease at the sewing line.

This piece needs to be sewn on right sides together, but upside down! So flip it over and use the crease to line it up.

So, I’d got carried away with myself and started marking the wrong side in the photo above! But here comes the magic… flip it over and mark your stitching line on the inside, using the first stitching line as a guide. it seems really obvious now, but this way, everything is based on one initial mark and the depth of your welt, rather than trying to make many different, independent marks meet up.

Stitch it from the wrong side, just be careful that all the pocket bags are laying out of the way and don’t get caught up where they shouldn’t.

Then I just had to do the whole thing again for the front welt pockets!

The rest of it is business as usual. If you wanted further reading on welts, or trouser construction click the links for some of my previous posts:

• Welts
• Trousers
• One piece welt

Now this pair are finished, I’m really pleased with them. They’ve slipped seamlessly into my workwear rotation and are hopefully the first step towards successfully branching out into a more colourful wardrobe.

And here they are in action…!

The fabric is light and easy to wear, it feels like brushed cotton so very much falls into the looks-smart-feels-like-pyjamas category of sewing! I like the cut and shape of these trousers a lot. I may even consider tweaking the pattern to make some variations (slashed pockets… a back yoke…?) Anyway, that’s me for now! Until next time…

Happy Sewing x

Notes to self:

• Take your own advice and only mark one line for welts!
• I’m going to have to make a few plain tops to go with these checked trousers if I don’t want to give people headaches!