Sewing Pants for Women...The Dress Rehearsal - First Fitting, Part 9

Continuing with the Sewing Pants for Women by Else Tryoler.  Today, will we talk about the first fitting:

If you have faithfully learned the lines of the Seven Giant Steps to Pants Perfection, your anguish will be at a minimum.  However, even with best of all possible plays has a few awkward bits.  In our case little individual body quirks you didn't know you had may become apparent.  Take heart, you must remember to take back any little oddity back to your pattern and make the changes there as well as in the finished product.

Now for the fitting:  Be sure you have sewn a belt onto the waist, or that you at least have a band basted to it.  Pants hang from the waist.  Don't try to hold them up with your hands and achieve fit at the same time!  The closing should be basted under on one side and the other marked with colored basting stitches for an accurate pinned closing.  If you are quite hippy put zipper in front or back, otherwise at any place you wish.

1.  Check the waist band for comfort, letting it out or in as needed.  This will affect the darts, making them deeper or shallower at the right place, either front or back.

2.  Check hip comfort, letting in or out slightly at side seams.

3.  Check crotch length.  Does it hang too low?  Then pin an even tuck all around the hip-line.  Is the crotch too short? Go back to Sewing Pants for Women...Preparing the Pattern for Alteration Step 2, Part 3 for the alteration. If it is only a matter of 1/4-inch or 1/2-inch, drop the waistline that amount.

4.  Check the crotch width.  Are you comfortable?  Is there a pull across the front or back at the crotch level?  Then let out the seams on the inner legs at the crotch point.  (See Sewing Pants for Women...Preparing the Pattern for Alteration Step 4, Part 5)  Perhaps there is too much leeway in this area.  Take the seams in, especially if you covet that cupped-in look of the younger generation.  In this case, taper a sharper inward curve down to the knee line.

5.  Check the back rise.  If any droopiness has crept in, or the seat does not hang as straight as you would have it, pin out a tuck across the seat. (See Sewing Pants for Women...Preparing the Pattern for Alteration Step 1. Part 2) .  If your pants pull in the center when bending or sitting:

      a.  Look at the waist center, front and back.  There may be too much dip or drop.  If this is so, set the waistband higher, tapering to nothing at the sides.

      b.  If more rise is needed, alter pattern by opening at center back about 1/2-inch and re-mark pants with altered pattern.

6.  Check for leg comfort.  This is a matter of taste as well as fit.  Take in or let out seams by the same technique you learned in { Step 6 }.  Be sure to keep the crease-line in the center!

A smile is a very pleasant thing indeed, except when it refers to wrinkles in the front of your pants!  Among the familiars of the garment trade, "pants that smile in front" is the euphemistic term used to describe garments with wrinkles that flair upwards from the crotch, as in the illustration.  And it is nothing to grin about!

The cause is varied:  there may be insufficient crotch width.  In this case the malady can be cured by referring back to crotch width alterations in Sewing Pants for Women...Preparing the Pattern for Alteration Step 4, Part 5.  There you will find instructions for widening this area.  Often, wrinkles are caused by too snug a fit through the hip at the side seams.  Misjudged hips or heavy thighs may need more breathing space.  Release the side seams and see if that doesn't do away with the unwanted smile.



To cup or not to cup -- that is the question!

The cupped-in look is a modern trend among the young-at-heart.  See the illustration.  Perhaps you admire it, perhaps you don't.  There are followers in both schools of thought.

This contour fit is achieved by reducing the crotch points in back only, and by deepening the seat curve.  The crotch curve must be a straighter, downward plunging line with a sharp turn inwards.  See Figure 31.

Perhaps you are not devoted to the cupped look, but find that there is simply too much fullness across or just below the seat.  Making the crotch curve a straighter, down-ward-plunging line or giving it a sharp turn inwards (or both) will serve to remedy the situation.

If any of these last-minute changes have cropped up in your fitting, and you have conscientiously made the changes to your pattern, you can go forth knowing that you are now the proud possessor of a true-blue pants pattern this is yours, all yours!  The final sweet reward will come when you sit back and dream of rows upon rows of perfect pants that are yours for the making!

Question:  What are you thoughts on these alterations?

Happy Sewing!