Fall Sewing - Must Make Vol. 1 - Ponte Pants

I'm taking another class this semester at FIT. Originally, the plan was to take Fit Analysis as the last requirement for the pattern-making certificate program. However, the first thing that the teacher (who is also the chair of the technical dept) said on the first day was that if there were any of the students were already working technical designers than we did NOT need to take the class. Huh. So, she waived the class requirement and said I could swap it for one of the other pattern-making courses. That's when I started ticking off the classes I've already taken and realized that not only do I already have enough classes under my belt for the certificate already, but knitwear is about the only class I haven't taken yet. I could have just dropped Fit Analysis and applied for the certificate, but I decided I wanted to take Knitwear anyway. My current job is in cut & sew knits so the class will be very useful to me professionally and my sewing buddy Sara already took this class with the same instructor (who is a great teacher, btw) over at the New School a few years ago, and I LOVED her projects which she got to draft for herself. It's going to be a very interesting semester!

This is all a very long winded way of explaining why I am now setting aside my summer sewing and diving headlong into my fall sewing plans. The first item on the list is a pair (or two or three) of ponte pants. I hate wearing pants in general because RTW pants are always to short in the rise and leg for me. I know that the obvious solution is the make my own (duh) but extensive pant fitting does not excite me. But pull on ponte pants can't be too hard, right? They stretch and usually don't have more than the most basic of zippers plus some interesting seams.  Since last winter I've stashed several pieces of ponte and collected a bunch of potential patterns (listed below) and I'm resolved to get to it!

 McCalls - M6173. 

These basic leggings from aren't high on my list, but 

I feel like I should have a pair of these eventually. 

via mccallpattern.mccall.com

Vogue 8859 by Marcy Tilton, 

The knee seams and the "jegging " details on the back give me pause, but I hear it's a nice fitting pant, though not very slim. I'm uncertain about sizing up or down to accommodate this fact.

via voguepatterns.mccall.com

Donna Karan Vogue 1378

OMG, the style lines are amazing. I can't even. These will be mine as soon as I get over my fear of  screwing up the fit. The wrap top is pretty fabulous too. If you spend any time stalking Donna Karan (or even DKNY) online you know how much I intend to $ave by making these myself. 

I even made note of the fiber content, marched over to Mood and demanded some "Donna Karan" ponte in that precise blend. 

via voguepatterns.mccall.com

 My current favorite: Vogue 1411, by Sandra Betzina. 

This one has really good fitting tips in the written instructions. Sandra, you are awesome.

via voguepatterns.mccall.com

 And the one I'm actually going to make first, Vogue 8962 

is as basic as it gets and I can try to get the basic fit of a ponte pants settled 

so that I can tackle the other lovely patterns on this list with confidence.

via voguepatterns.mccall.com

How do you feel about pull on, elastic waist, ponte pants? Yay or nay? 

Have you ever made any? Do you own any?