the pants journey. pt 2

Ok peeps, time for a pants part 2. Just a reminder, I'm using the Design It Yourself Clothes book. Here's the completed pattern pieces:


Since you're drafting from measurements, you can add whatever shaping or ease you wish at the legs/etc. I have added a slight bootcut and the rest is a pretty slim fit. I figured if I can get a slimmer pant to look nice and fit well, I'm in like Flynn for everything else.

And here's my first muslin. I actually finished this one Sunday but didn't have time to snap a pic until tonight. Sorry, no waist shots because I haven't actually attached the waistband yet!


Things I learned from the first muslin:
Rise Measurement: The book instructs you to hold a book or other object between your legs, then measure the distance from your waist to the top edge of the book for the rise. I did measure this way, but didn't take into account that my front waist dips about 1" or more in front. That's why you don't have a back view. It's most definitely not PG-13.
**The Fix: I raised the back pattern piece by 1", and also to the side fronts, truing the seamline to meet my original center front (which fits perfect by the way. Wow.)

Thigh Measurement: I'm so used to adding to the "thighs" of other patterns that I just automatically didn't trust my pattern draft and added .5" to the outer thigh of front & back. That's the extra 'pouchy' fabric on my outer thighs. Yeah, I guess I drafted better than I thought!
**The Fix: Remove .5" addition from outer thighs on pattern.

High/Full Hips in Back: This is just a usual alteration for me. I always muslin without adding this, and always have to go back and add it in. No difference here. Since I was using the "Rise" measurement for my pant back & front, I not only need the additional 1" above (in back) but also an additional .5" to 1" for my high, full hips.
**The Fix: I tried on my BurdaPlus pant from last week and tied an elastic around my waist. Then, I adjusted my pants by pulling up or down until I lost the drag lines and wrinkles. Lu took a tailor's chalk and chalked a line around the top of the elastic at my waist, then I removed the pants. Note, the Burda pant has an elastic waist, so I marked that 1.25" casing line also. It turns out at exact CF and CB I'm "perfect". It's just everywhere else that's a little off. ;)

I cut this piece away at the chalked line. This gave me a crazy looking piece of fabric! But it also served as a map of how much I need to add to each front and back piece to account for my assorted lumps and bumps. I traced this fabric "waist map" onto tissue and carefully labeled it. I think if you click the large version, you can see a little better how it works.


The "clear" sections of the pattern are the original waist area (the dotted line would be the actual waist seamline plus s/a). The shaded portions are what I need to add or remove. Note that I need this adjustment on basically ALL pants and some skirts, so I'll just keep this little pattern for future reference (disgarding the lefthand portion probably. I can fine-tune.) In front it's more interesting than in back, which is almost a solid 1" straight across.

I'm pretty happy so far. I've already adjusted the pattern pieces and now I just need to muslin again and add the waistband this time to fine tune. I'll get a better idea of the fit in back with a waistband.

I have to say, I can't believe how easy this was to draft. Now I'm excited to try the t-shirt pattern and basic blouse pattern! I've already recorded all the necessary measurements.

I should add that I left off one piece of equipment in my last post photo that I needed...a French curve or "hip curve". I have a French curve that I used to draft the curve at the crotch, waist, and side seam. You could probably do it without, but I found it really, really helpful.

So, have you bought the book yet??

the pants journey. pt 1.

So what better is there to do on a rainy Sunday than to flat draft pants? I can't think of anything!

I started with this book, which has flat pattern drafting instructions for a basic top, skirt, and pant (all with several variations):

I was pretty intrigued reading through this book because I've had such great success using similar flat pattern drafting with my Sew What Skirts book. Of course I jumped right to the pants chapter since I am tired of fooling with that Burda Plus pant. **Hey, I just joined KitschyCoo's sewalong for this book too! See my cute button on the sidebar? Here's the Flickr group! Join us! And, you know, buy the book.

And to entertain myself while plotting out my soon to be perfectly-drafted-to-fit-me pants I popped in the first (and only, sniff) season of Moonlight. Because Mick St. John is hot. And vampires are good pant-drafting buddies. Didn't you know?


See those claw marks on the top right? Poor yellow cat has been locked in the other end of the house because of her intense love for my roll of tracing paper. Bad kitty.

Burda Plus#402

I have crappy pictures to share! Yay!

These are the plain front trousers from Burda Plus issue E952 (Spring 07, I think), pattern #402. Just a note about this great pattern. It's in the "Plus" issue, but for those of you unfamiliar with these special issues of Burda Fashion magazines, the sizing begins at 44 for most patterns (just like in the BWOF plus section), which is also on the higher end of regular sizes. That opens up these patterns to many more sewists! Here's the line drawing:

I didn't have quite enough of this tobacco twill to make full length pants, so I shortened the pattern to capri's. I had been crawling around the floor looking for something before taking these pictures, so excuse the messy, wrinkly appearance. Fit from the front is pretty perfect:


And the dreaded back view. ;) This one's not so bad though. Other than my high right hip (which I typically ignore since I can't see it), which has a few wrinkles pointing to it. Look in particular at my waistband, which is pulled over 1/4-1/2" to the right. I never realized my pants did that.


This pattern fits marvelously, almost right out of the magazine. I did a muslin using old quilting cotton I wasn't going to use, and tweaked the pattern with the following changes: added a bit at my front hip edge (always have to adjust for that no longer flat stomach. Damn thirties anyway); Minott method for full inner thighs (using Debbie's fabulous tutorial); extended the front crotch 1/2" (the front crotch on this pattern is really short).

After I made the second muslin (in this tobacco twill) I went back and lowered the crotch seam about 3/8" to fix a bit of pulling there. Here's a diagram of my changes. I know it looks like I changed alot, but really these are very minor changes for a pants pattern!!
I used a cute orange floral cotton for the waistband facing (rather than bulky twill):


And I used the same cute print as my fly shield:


I'm pretty excited to give these a try in a trouser weight fabric too! Since this pattern is so "plain" it will be a nice pattern to use as a base for other styles (change the leg cut, add pockets, etc.)

Next up is this top from 6/08 BWOF, in white dotted swiss:

My muslin (which I used a fabric I totally love on, and am a little bitter about now) wasn't much of a success. I wouldn't term it a complete wadder, but I'll probably never wear it so I didn't do any finishing details. I found the chest/bust area to be really snug. Definitely a smaller fit than the last top I made in this size (I would classify this one as a definite B cup pattern.)

I also think the pleats plus gathered side casing is repetitive and not really all that noticable in the finished product, so I'll just be doing the casing. The casing itself is positioned too high for my waist, so I'll be lowering that. I've had it cut out for 2 days, but things are just slow around here this week. Hopefully I'll finish it today!

A Muslin Story - Part II

My 2nd muslin! I didn't add the pockets to this pattern. They are creating a whole other set of problems that I don't want to concentrate on right now. I would consider leaving them off (I don't use pockets as a rule) but they really do add a bit of style to the pants.

For the back wrinkly crotch, I decided to try Debbie Cook's full thigh alteration from her Jan Minott fitting book. It adds room for a full inner thigh (which I've got in spades.) This almost fixed my back wrinkles! The 1st muslin is on the left, and the 2nd muslin is on the right (loud fabric sewn wrong side out!) I'm twisting a bit in this new photo, holding the camera over my shoulder, and I wonder if that is creating the small wrinkles that are still visible?


I still need to add a bit at the high hip, but I'm going to do this after deciding whether or not to keep the pockets.

The front was still a mess, though, so I played around with creating a tuck here and there a'la an article in Threads I read recently. After finding that a tuck about halfway down the front eliminated the bagginess, I pinned it, then took the pants to the machine & sewed it as a dart (tapering to nothing at the fly front). You'll see the little "pouch" of fabric in the back view where that dart is, but that won't be there if I alter the pattern.


That almost completely fixed my front view problems. I don't know what kind of wedge alteration this is, and when I went to make it to my pattern piece, I got confused. I made a wedge to remove some from the front. It interfered with the pocket opening size though, and I needed to taper the waistline back up to regular height too. Here's what I came up with, but I'll have to make one more muslin to test it!


The last thing I did was removed some of the flair from the pant legs because they are WIDE and flaired. However, on viewing my (loud turned inside out) pants in the mirror, they've lost some of their interest without the flair. So I think I'll add some back! The only other thing I'm going to do to the next pair is add the bit at the high front hip.

I'm out of muslin fabric though, so it will have to wait for a trip to WM. I'm hoping they'll have something on the $1 table that is drapey like trousers so I can really assess my changes.

I've also put out the call for help on PR. You can follow along HERE. And Marji has put together an excellent compilation of pants-fitting articles & tips HERE. Thank you Marji!