Thorsberg Pants: Final

Finally, my Thorsberg pants are done. The most recent changes to the pattern for the footies worked well. I find the footies to be a little tight, being used to modern stretch socks. I am also finding the seams under my foot to be annoying. Like the seams in  legs of the pants I suspect it is a matter of getting used to them.

As you can see from the photos, the pants legs are quite baggy. So much so that when I sewed the footies onto the legs I actually had to over lap the fabric. Luckily, with the split in place it was fairly easy to overlap and does not impede my use of the pants at all. But, because of the overlap, 2 inches on the right leg and 3 inches on the left, I do not feel the need to add the ties to the backs of the legs at all.

Speaking of the ties. The Spouse had an idea for the purpose of the opening in the back of the leg and the ties. He suggested that anyone wearing this style of pants would not want to get them wet or muddy so the slit in the back allowed the wearer to put his feet through and pull the pants up out of harms way. The ties could have been there to tie the raised pants up and out of the way so they wouldn't have to hold them in place or risk them slipping down anyway. It is a possible reason and is as likely as any other theory I have seen on the subject.

A theory I came up with is that the split is there to make it easier to get the pants on. If you have ever tried to put on non-stretch thigh high boots, especially very snug ones, it is kind of hard to get the foot down and into the foot section. It could be something similar for these pants. If they were as snug fitting as the original documentation suggests it could have been hard to get them on with out the split in the back of the leg.

I've watched the Spouse put his leg wraps on and loose fabric can be tricky, causing the wraps to not tighten correctly and slide off during the day. Maybe the ties were there to  close the material to make it easier to get the leg wraps on and stay on during the days activities. Until we develop a time machine to go back and view the pants being worn by their original owners, we will never know for sure but we can make educated guesses based on our own observations with reconstructions.