- Hello and good morning
kind friends and companions. I'm Morgan Donner, that
still has not changed. Although, what has changed
recently is my desire for pants. I saw a video by Rachel
Maksy about a year ago, with her ✨Secret Pants✨. Like, it looks like a skirt,
but then suddenly BIFURCATION. They are so dang cool. And since then, I've seen
these really, really neat, late Victorian, kind
of Edwardianish things, like, there's a few patterns around. There's tons of really cool recreations that people have done of that style. Although something about it
kept feeling really familiar, like deja vu, but for pants. And I realized they
make me think of these, these pants with all the
chains in the random pockets and zippers everywhere. Oh my gosh, in middle
school and high school, I thought these were the
literal *coolest* thing on earth. And I wanted a pair so badly, but it just wasn't in
the cards at the time. However, my little goth heart has grownup and I've become a Whole Ass Woman who can just go buy fabric and
make silly pants if I want. And that's the video. Like, I'm gonna take some
late 1800s, early 1900s, and some early 2000s and
just mash them together. Let's get started. So from what I can tell,
late Victorian skirts seem to generally be half-circle skirts that have then been divided
up into several panels. So the grain hangs really nicely. And I think I'm going to go ahead and draft up a skirt first, based on that thought process,
and hope it goes okay. And then later on, I will figure out the pants
portion of this skirt pant. First, I'll measure my waist
and then divide that in half to get the initial little 1/4 circle mark. Then I will measure from
my waist to the floor to get the length of the skirt. And then I'll just carry
that all the way around. It'll likely need to get trimmed up later, but this should be a
pretty good rough start. Then I'll divide that
up into several panels, just kind of eyeballing what looks good. So I've already discovered a
slight, slight flaw in my plan, which is that, a lot of
late Victorian skirts have a lot of pleats in the back. So if I were to take the back
panel or back two panels, and pleat them up,
suddenly this part here, that was my waist measurement will no longer be the size of my waist. Whoops. So I think what I'm gonna have to do is, I'm going to cut off the
tops of each of these pieces so that my waist measurement
is now much bigger. That'll give me room for the pleats, as well as also giving me some room to do a little bit of
shaping in the waist, which seems to be a pretty popular feature for this type of skirt. So now I have plenty of waist, maybe even a little bit
too much, but that's okay. I don't mind a lot of like extra pleating action at the back, but I'm now kind of realizing, as I hold this piece up
to my center front here, I feel like this should be a
little bit wider at the top, although the bottom looks about right. I'm also thinking that the back piece, if I pleat that up a whole bunch, then what used to be my side seam, will suddenly start traveling back, maybe a bit further than I'd like. So I think I will also
take off a little bit from the second piece and transfer it to either the back piece or
the second to back piece, one of those two. But then I think finally, I'll be ready to start thinking about the pants part of this. So I think that my skirt
pattern is good to go. It's looking pretty nice. Now, I just need to do
the pants part, which... I've never had a lot of
luck doing pants, ever, but we're gonna see if
we can make it work. I suppose I could like go
online and look at a tutorial for how to like draft out a pants pattern, that like whole under the
torso bit, but I don't want to. So instead I'm just gonna
wing it and hope it works out. I do know that I'm going to need to measure underneath the body. So from the belly button at the waist, down and around to the back at the waist and use that measurement to get the... Like, the curvy bit in the pants. To get the extra fabric that I needed for the pants part of this pattern, I went ahead and took
the center front panel, folded it in half and then copied that, so that I could then take that copy and tape it to the center back area as well as the side front panel. So I think that hopefully that means, I will now have the extra material needed for it to do its good pantsy goodness. So now I think I need to make a mock-up. I don't have a lot of fabric right now, but I think that maybe
I have some old sheets that I can rustle up. All right, mock-up time. So putting this on really quick, I decided to quickly just pin back, the back part of the mock-ups, since that will eventually
be pleated up back here, approximately in this manner. So this gives me kind of a rough idea of how that's gonna look. And then for the front section, it is looking relatively
pants like, you know, very big pants, but I
really, really dig the way that the little skirt front
flap thing, looks with it. It definitely makes it look
way, way, way more like a skirt, which I'm into and... But still has, like, I think
it's gonna be a really cool extra decorative element, to
have this kind of loose flap here in the front. And I can still like move my legs. I think it's gonna be really, really cool. So pretty happy with how
that's looking so far. I do think that the side
seam is maybe just a smidge too far forward on my body. And I think I'm gonna add, kind of a pocket right here or so, and I feel like this should
be just a slight smidgen back, but that's a very small change. Otherwise, I feel like this
is pretty much gonna work out. (soft music) Alrighty, so I have my
black side and my red side all nicely cut out and I
was ready to sew them together. I've got everything
pinned in place and ready. And then I realized I should
probably actually go ahead and sew the pocket on the front, I'm not gonna do like a
hidden Victorian style pocket. I'm gonna go for much more
of a modern kind of jeans, trouser style pocket with
the cutout right here. So I need to go ahead and attach that and do that before I sew the side seam. So... pockets now! So I have made my two pockets, and I bound up the front edge of like, where you put your hand in. And then I did some
bastings stitches here, just to keep the edge nice
and neat and consistent. While I then stitch on the same sort of, like top stitching here to
secure it to the pamphlet. (upbeat music) We are moving right along. We have three panels, nicely
stitched together like so, and then next up I need
to do this same sort of, decorative top stitching
onto the two side seams here on the black side, as
well as the red side, that the camera is
currently sitting on top of. And then I think it is time
to have some fun decorating. (soft music) (sewing machine running) I've got one, two pockets down and I have a third one in mind for here. I feel like your standard
square/rectangularish back pocket. So I decided to add a little
bit of extra decoration using some of the salvage
on top of the pocket. Help give the thinner red fabric just a little bit more reinforcement. So you know, a little bit of
extra thickness on it is nice. And then for the black one, I decided that I'm also going
to do some more decoration, but probably just extra stitching, since it doesn't need as much like, you know, thickness reinforcement. Tadaah! It now has a back and a front,
and there's a working zipper that I definitely did not cry about. I figured it out like a absolute
grown-up adult, for sure. And now it's looking
suspiciously pants like, which I'm really, really thankful for. So what to do next? I think that what I
need now is to go ahead and sew up the waistband, I'm going to make just a very simple, long rectangular waistband piece. And like I said before, this back part here is
gonna get pleated up, something like that. And then the rest of this
gets sewn into a band. I think I'll do a button at the front. Maybe a skirt hook. I'm not sure, I'll decide when I get there. I think I just broke a piece of my camera. That's not good. But okay, anyways, so the
pants are getting close. So I think, functionally,
this is put-on-able, except for lack of a closure here. I don't have one of those
really big shink style buttons that you put on a lot of pants modernly, but I do have a little hook here. Let me give you a closer peak of that. So this is gonna get stitched on this side and then this little eye bar type piece will get stitched here and
then hook and that'll be great. (chuckles) So let's stitch that on. And now, the waistband area is done. It's looking lovely and
complete, I'm very pleased. Now, I think what I wanna do is, I'm going to cut right here, sort of just underneath
the cargo pocket area. I'm gonna cut off this whole
bottom section of the skirt and then I'm going to flip it up and make it so that I can zip the bottom half of the skirt on. I think that'll be super fun, cause it means that in the summer I can have just a knee length skirt, and then in the winter I can
add on lots of extra length for all that good, good warmth-ly-ness. And I think that'll be a
really fun, versatile element. So let's get zipping. So for the zipper, unlike the little one that
I put in the front fly, I knew that I was going to
need quite a long, long zipper. So I got one of these like, continuous rolls of zipper material and it came with this cute little bag full of little zippers, the pulling part. I've gotta say it was an adventure, figuring out how these two go together to make like a complete zipper, especially a separating zipper, because I want to be able to take off the bottom part of the pants, whew. But here's what I figured out: And let's see if I can show you, in case this also becomes something that you want to do at some point. I'm just going to cut off a little piece to kind of demonstrate. You're gonna want to insert one of the little zipper pulls. And then, for this other side,
we want to kind of remove the first centimeter or so of teeth. And then what's actually kind of nice about this being plastic
is that you can just stick the end here into a flame to secure it, you don't have to stitch
it down or anything. Once you've removed that
initial bit of thread, you can stick this in and hold both ends. And hopefully, yeah, there we go. Zip it up like so. Now, this works temporarily,
but I want to not only secure the end with a bit of
flame, like I mentioned, but also just a little dab
of a super glue around this to help really sort of
secure all those bits and ends down and keep it from coming up. And then for this side, I don't actually want the zipper pull to remove itself from this zip. I want it to always stay attached. So what I'm gonna do is just stitch some thread lines around the end here, and then also finish that
off with a dab of super glue. And then for the top end,
kind of the same thing. Hopefully, whenever this gets
sewn, these ends get secured into whatever you're
stitching your item with, but it doesn't hurt at
this phase to also go ahead and toss a couple stitches of thread around both ends of the zipper. That way, you don't accidentally, *BOOP* the zipper off all the way. And then here, we now
have a separating zipper. Now, for my actual skirt, I went ahead and attached the zipper all the way around the edge, which actually happenstance
worked out really nicely, that the width of the
zipper is actually also, exactly the width of this
little overlap panel, because what I'm gonna do is, I'm going to top stitch all along here, so that whenever it's all zipped up, you can't actually see the
zipper, or if I do unzip it, you still will only see this bottom edge. You won't ever see the
exposed zippery goodness, although, that also kind
of a fun aesthetic. So that is an option. So now that the pants are
pretty functionally done, I've turned my attention to the sort of, false skirt panel thing for the front, I was fiddling about with what sort of way I wanted to secure the skirt
to the front of the pants. And I think I like these
little hooky things, and that's looking kind of cute. For the bottom, I really wasn't digging the kind of simple rectangular shape that I originally planned, something about it wasn't feeling right. So I kind of played around
with it for a little bit. And I think I like this kind of kite shape that I've gone to now. So I need to... I only pinned it in place temporarily. Now, I need to actually cut
it like this and hem it, and stitch on these
little metal finding bits, and we are moving right along. Now that these straps and
hooks are all in place. I do need to give them
somewhere to attach to. So I've added a few pins here, to mark where the
D-rings need to be placed so I can get them secured down. I really like the contrasting
trim look of that front panel. So I made a couple little short versions and stitched them in place. I then realized that I forgot
to add the D-rings themselves, which was the whole point. So I undid the fresh stitching
and added the D-rings and then stitched all down again. For a little, kind of
added decorative flair. I added rivets to the ends, as well as a few random ones elsewhere. Zero regrets, I think that
they look really great. And these are super quick to add. I also added a few cute little spikes, although in retrospect, I do kind of wish that
I'd added bigger ones. These are so dainty that
it's actually kind of hard to see them when you're
wearing the outfit. For the straps, I went with
this sort of Y shaped design with one short strap at the bottom here, and then two long ones. The end has a hook clasp
and there's an adjustable strap slider in between
so that I can change the length of the long straps. To put these together, I first threaded the
strap through the slider. Then I added the clasp and
then threaded the end of back through the slider again,
on the inside though. And this end here needs to get
secured down some stitching. That just about wraps up the split skirt. I did add a couple more decorative bits and I hemmed the bottom edge and such, but now it is time to
get properly dressed. I was kind of curious how this would look with late Victorian foundations, since that's kinda what I was
basing the pattern off of. So I tossed on a corset
and a couple of slips, then some hip padding, and a blouse with a pin
at the center front, to help the gather sort
of stay nicely there, some socks and shoes. And for decoration, a few bracelets and a
necklace that I might've made, literally five minutes
before filming this. And then the star of the
show, Shenanigan Pants. And fun fact: I was actually
really, really worried about how incredibly heavy
these were turning out to be. So I asked some folks on Instagram
at how much their various full length wool skirts weighed. And I did get a wide range of answers. My skirt *is* on the heavier end of things, but not completely ridiculously. Which weirdly makes
me feel a lot better. Anywho, I am very pleased with these. I love the hanging skirt
panel look and the straps. I think it just looks so
cool as it is right now, but they can also move around. Like, instead of clipping it to the panel, I can move the straps to the
waist and then adjust them, so that they're kind of like suspenders, or I can rearrange everything so that the skirt panel sits higher. And it basically becomes
very fancy overalls. If I want a little bit less of a tripping hazard on my adventures, I can cinch up the bottom of hem, which kind of makes me look like a "Dragon Ball Z"
character, but I'm kinda into it. But if I would like to
be even less encumbered, I can simply remove the
bottom part of this altogether and just be totally set for
tromping through the woods with minimal muddy hem potential. For a very casual mode, I can pop the bid down
and ease out the straps, or for just absolute, maximum simplicity, I can remove all of this together, the front panel, the straps, all of it, and just enjoy having some
very, very big shorts. Okay, there is still one final
last secret in these pants, which is pockets. All right, maybe not a secret per se, because you can see them
from like a mile away, but I want to emphasize just
how awesomely big they are. Not only can I fit the entirety of my phone in any of these pockets, I could probably fit
three of them actually. I can also travel with a whole
session of "Hunter A Killer," who are the awesome sponsors of this video (and therefore these pants.) And now normally your
game of "Hunter A Killer" will not arrive to you
magically via pants delivery. I'm sorry. But instead in a tidy box, which I just now realized
matches my pants. I legit promise that wasn't on purpose. But anyways, it's a really cool
themed murder mystery game, just like your favorite
crime podcast or show, but you get to be the one
that puts together the clues and solve the mystery. Right now you can go to
a hunterkiller.com/morgan and use code Morgan for
$10 off your purchase. I personally love getting a
new box in the mail each month, but if you aren't into waiting, you can buy a whole sets at
a time and just have yourself like a wild weekend of mystery solving. That would actually be a killer (heh, get it?) idea for a game night with friends. But anyways, again, make sure to use code
Morgan for a $10 discount. Do you have what it takes to
"Hunter A Killer" my friend? Do you ever have that thing
where you're doing your makeup and you're trying to get even eyeliner, then you do want a little bit too much. So you have to do the
other one to match it. And then that becomes too
much, and then you have to... And then suddenly you look like this. This is a look. I hope you guys are into it today. It's very fun, just it's a lot. I also think this is a
lot, but in a good way. I am so happy. So just absurdly happy
with how this turned out. I feel like I like a lot of
my projects, which is good, but I don't know that
I have loved anything as much as I love the split
skirt divided pants thing that I made today with
optional overall mode. I don't know where along the
line I started thinking like, "Well, if I add more hookups here and I do another one back here, then I can do all of
these different changes so that it has all these different, optional, convertible modes." I think the only thing I could have done to make this even more
transformable, reversible. If it had been reversible,
then just so many options. I wish I had the perfect
thing to wear this to. Right now, I'm just gonna
wear it around the house because it's wool and it's very warm and that's pretty sweet. Even with just the short mode, without the extra length at the bottom. It's a nice wool skirt with
quite a lot of volume in it. So I'm pretty set for
some fun winter wear. Now, as far as the... This like bib apron front thing, I do really like,
especially the extra lines. I feel like that gives it a bit of punch that it might not have. Although, I also feel a
little bit .... Lederhosen-y? Do you know what I mean? One second. There, like, do you see it? Do you see what I mean? Not that that's a bad thing,
I suppose, but it's a look. Speaking of being a look, I actually think that
this might be really cute with some of my wigs. Wow, so this is a look. If it weren't for the bangs, I might feel a little bit, you know, sort of early 2000s
Avril, but with the bangs, I feel more, more "Alice in Wonderland." This is actually kind of fun. And I think that if it were
like red on the bottom, like, that would be just extra fun. I think I'd have to do like
a whole new photo shoot just for this look. Black works pretty dang well. I don't know that I would
say that this is a more, sort of punk than my just normal hair. Maybe if I find another shirt or like another kind of upper half look, then I'll take some pictures
with the black hair to go with, but for right now, brown hair. I hope you guys had fun
watching this video. I don't know that
anybody's going to use it as a thing to help them make their own Shenanigan Pants situation. But if you do, please do tag
me on Instagram, Facebook. I think it'd be cool to
see other people's versions of the same thing. Thank you guys so much for watching. Please do check out "Hunter a Killer." It's a really cool concept, and I think you guys will enjoy it. Anyways, thanks so much for watching and I will see you guys a-later.
