> zippers are a little more complicated... you need a zipper foot for your sewing machine...

I'm OK with hand-sewing the fly until I get extra tools, or using a button fly for my early attempts.


> you don't want to go out and get nice expensive material and then have a glitch and
> mess it up on your first attempt

I figure the $2/yd cotton broadcloth that I think I remember seeing at JoAnn's should make decent pants to wear for times when I'm not worried about impressing people. If I remember correctly, that's cheaper than the knits that I usually see drawstring pants made from. Yes, I should avoid starting with dress slacks made from $15/yd wool :-)

> just be prepared to make a mistake or two when you first start out... we all do it and
> we learn that if you are trying something new...

Absolutely, thanks for the reminder :-)


> hit the $1 per yard table at walmart and make a "dummy" of the garment
> before you destroy $10 per yard material

The trouble there is, when I've poked at those materials, often it's fabric that seems to act completely differently than the stuff I intend to wear. I'm still a fabric novice, but I think that this would reduce the benefit of making the dummy piece. Unless something jumps out at me as being perfect from the bargain bin, I think it makes more sense for me to start with the lowest-end fabric I intend to use anyway. Yes?

And those look like excellent links, thank you.

Although the $10 online class kind of makes me nervious, since there's no indication that they've even thought of mens clothing on their site, and I figure that mens pants are probably shaped very differently than women's. The last thing I need is pants designed to handle hips ;-)