Review: J.Crew Minnie in Bi-stretch Wool and Cafe Capri in Wool

     I wasn't going to post about these but since I haven't had a whole lot to post about lately, I thought I would just go ahead and do it anyway. Plus, since I reviewed the Minnie in stretch twill, I thought it would only be fair. :P

Back not great after a few hours of wear (blurry, sorry):

     The bi-stretch wool Minnie fits almost exactly the same as the twill in 00P. They fit pretty well overall, but the length, although they're supposed to be ankle-length (24" inseam), they definitely are not on me (I have almost a 31" inseam in flats). I'm not a huge fan of capris, but these aren't so terrible, I guess. At this length, and even if I let out the inseam an inch, it doesn't have a whole lot of versatility particularly for the office. For me, that makes it pretty much a deal-breaker because that's where I would actually like to wear these pants! 


    As to the material, two points need to be made. One, they do seem to hold their shape a little bit better than the twill. I see it start to bag a little bit, but it isn't so bad. The second point is that because it's wool, it's a little itchy. I'm finding myself a little bit more sensitive to wool as I get older, and I was scratching a bit while wearing it. These pants are not lined, so this is definitely something to think about it if you are sensitive to wool. They're nice pants, but I just wish they were about 3 inches longer. I can't do much with these otherwise even if I do tuck them into boots in the winter, so these will have to go back.


    The second pair of pants I ordered was the Cafe Capri in 00P. Kelly from AlterationsNeeded reviewed these and seeing how they were on her, I thought these would be big on me also although my measurements are a bit larger than Kelly's. Nonetheless, I was interested and didn't want to keep wondering, so I ordered them. 


    When I first put them on, my first thought was that I looked like a jester. Cee from ToBrightenMyDay and I had a good laugh over these on Twitter as I tweeted a photo with striped socks for full effect. As I put these on again for this post, I started to see a bit of potential in them:

    The color is "Port Wine", a little bit more purple and less red than it might look on your computer screen on the J.Crew website. The material is similar to the bi-stretch, just with much less stretch and actually less itchy, but it could be that it's just because they aren't super snug to my legs. They are too big around the hips and the thighs (my hips at it's widest point is 32.75"), the rise is a bit too high for me, and the back looks like mom pants. But I took some pins to it and realized that these could possibly work with a bit of alterations. I don't know if I mentioned this, but I recently purchased a sewing machine. I've wanted to learn to sew since I was a little girl, but one day I became really irritated with one of my tailors (I have two, one in DC and one in Toronto). In Toronto, I take my clothes to Stitch-it (a chain, I'm sure all the Canadians are familiar with). I love the way they do a Euro-hem for jeans, but I always forget that I'm not all that impressed with some of their other work. I pay my tailors a lot of money to get things to fit, but let's be honest, if I wanted a crooked hem I would have done it myself. =/ And so after a failed tailoring attempt (two fails for one skirt), I decided that I *will* do it myself!...At least for more basic alterations; I certainly don't think I would ever be skilled enough to alter a fully lined coat. 


    Anyway, as I mentioned, I took some pins to the pants and this is what I got:

     Not bad. And since these pants have a cuff, I can actually take these down about 2.5". So it would go from 25" to maybe a little longer than 27.5" making it a pretty decent ankle pant.  So what do you ladies think? Should I engage in some DIY slimming and lengthening? Keep in mind, I am a newbie and have never slimmed pants before and these after sale discount is about $90. At the risk of tooting my own horn, I think I'm pretty good for a beginner, but I'm certainly not incredibly skilled at sewing yet. Should I risk it?