Personal Pants Pattern

Here are the pics of the pants pattern I drafted yesterday from the info in the Jan '08 Threads article.

The front is on the left, and the back is on the right. The pants backpattern had to be drafted with reference points from the front so it had to be recopied onto a second sheet. The red lines illustrate the pants pattern back. Here's a closeup of the top:

It's an interesting draft, somewhat close in measurements to the pattern I used for the capri pants I made two days ago. Short, shallow front crotch, long back crotch, however, I'm anticipating some scooping of the back crotch curve as per my flexible curve of my front/back crotch line. It's nice to know that this pattern was drafted exactly for my measurements with maybe a margin of error of a 1/4", if that. My hipline is exact, waist is exact, the only area that will need expansion will be the upper thigh as my upper thigh measurement is slightly larger than my hip measurement. I'm using 2" side seam and 1" inseams. I will make my right waistline curve 3/8" higher as a separate fabric piece since my right side seam curve is longer than my left.

Here's to hoping using a personal draft will make my fitting issues a little easier. However, the pant pattern I just used was generated from a freebie downloaded from a pattern drafting website.

Where are those darn size 10 pattern fit models anyway??? I'd really like to give them a smack ;) . Can you imagine having a pattern company use your body as the basis for their sizing? Can you imagine making a pattern straight from the envelope and having it fit? I certainly can't. But a girl can dream about it, can't she! But the real nightmare is making muslin after muslin, each one not really fitting after thinking it might be "the one".

I'm working on adding my seam allowances tonight and tomorrow.

Personal Pants Draft

Today I worked on the pants draft from the January '08 Threads issue. I created both the front and the back from my own measurements. It was actually very easy to do as the instructions were very easy to understand and accurate.

The measurements are similar to my pattern that I worked on two days ago, except for the crotch curve. I'm cutting 2" side seams to play with in anticipation of having to fiddle with the curve.

I'm not going to have any time tomorrow to work on cutting anything out, so I'll just mull things over in my brain before cutting pants from my modifed pattern as well as the self-drafted one from Threads. This will certainly be interesting.

Those Elusive Perfect Pants

I sewed up my capris today. Definitely not perfect, better than the original pair, though, but not by a lot.


So I went downstairs to my bookshelf and pulled out the following Threads issues:

1. January 2007--Fitting Series: The Seat of the Pants


2. January 2008--Make the Best-Fitting Pair of Pants EVER


3. December 2005--A Better Way to Fit Pants

The one I liked the best for what I was working on was the article by Joyce Murphy from Dec. 2005. That's the one about Body Space, and I truly feel that is the most relevant for my figure at this point. I had a revelation when working on my crotch curve and kind of used her method but didn't have any extra space at the side seams (working with 3/8" SA's--what a duh!) to add width to account for the width removed at the CB. So, yeah, it's a bit snug across the bum with some ugly side seam pulls.


I made my changes on the pattern, but before making a new pair of capris, I'm going to use the Jan. 2008 issue to draft my own pants pattern and see how it differs from the one in which I made changes. I think that will be fairly interesting.



While I was working on my body space today, I used my flexible curve to check my crotch curve. My curve wasn't as long as my crotch length so I had to do the best I could. And you know what? I have an awfully strange/bizarre crotch curve. Guess it would be called a tilted pelvis? Here's the pic.

So there you go (inseam point at ribbon mark). A short, shallow front with little curve, and a deep, low, long back curve. Scoop, scoop, scoop, huh. (Guess when my butt dropped it hit the floor.) According to Joyce's method, I had to remove quite a bit of the pattern in the back to get more width for my body space. Then I had to add the width removed to the side seam. Hmm...maybe Joyce should have used me for the article! So now my bizarre pattern looks like this:

Please excuse the blue smudges all over the place. My hands are covered with marker ink! Now isn't that the oddest pattern??? Look at the side curve I had to add because of the body space removed at the CB seam. Turns out my back side seam is an inch longer than the front side seam because of this addition of width at the side. Joyce doesn't discuss how to deal with this so I guess it will have to be eased in. Good thing I'm working with natural fiber fabric. I have no idea how this would look in a hard-to-ease synthetic fabric.

Here's a pic of the front and back together (don't look at my smudged table!):

Talk about a bad ass curve LOL! I did a search on "Joyce Murphy pattern alteration" (or something like that) and came across a blog post by Sigrid in October 2007. I looked at her pants fitting blog posts from that time period and found them extremely enlightening. So I'm still very hopeful for a nice, fitting pair with no bad a$$ issues.

I'll keep you posted on my progress. Can't see getting a lot done with drafting my own this weekend as I have to take the girls (GASP) back-to-school shopping. For RTW clothes--yuck. I hate mall shopping and didn't get that female shopping gene. Remember when fabric stores used to be in malls, like So-Fro Fabrics? If only there was one! I sure miss them. They could shop for RTW all afternoon while I perused the pattern books. But no. I'll just have to bring some paperwork with me to keep busy. Please...pity me. Me going to the mall is like taking a typical (most anyway) male to a sewing store.

Tomorrow is popcorn and wine cooler night! Yep, I'm one heck of an exciting girl ;) . I'll drink my cooler, enjoy my popcorn, and catch up on my blog reading which has been neglected for a few days.

Almost forgot, thank you to Kasey, Kim, and Sigrid. They gave me lots of tips on bras. Kasey gave me info on adhesive bras, Kim told me she bought a great one at Victoria's Secret (guess which store I WILL be going into this weekend!), and Sigrid encouraged me to try my hand sometime at making my own.

The Perfect Pair of Pants

I'm on my quest for it.

I made up the pajama pants 3 days ago for DD#2. I used my serger and sewed them in (a very surprising way for the slow sewer that I am) super speedy. My only issue: They don't fit her! However, they do fit me very nicely. I thought I used the 5/8" SA's on the pattern last time but mustn't have. She needs fine tuning at the side seams and I must have forgotten that. There's no room to let out for extra room with my serged seams either. Last time I do believe I pinfitted the pants on her first. Subsequently, they are too snug around the pants in the crotch area, 3" above and below. The good thing is, *I* now have a very nice-fitting pair of pajama pants. I'll take pics later.

The past two days I've been working diligently on drafting a nice-fitting pair of pants. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I'm working on a pattern I've used before and rather like. Just working on tweaks, redesigning the crotch curve to match my own, etc.

I think there my still be some vertical fullness right below the crotch line. According the FFRP, it says to pinch out the excess to determine the amount, then take a tuck from waist to hem. Unfortunately, the excess is only in a 6 inch area. Above and below, the width of my pattern is fine. So what to do? I'll make these pants up again with all my alterations except for the tuck. Then decide if a tuck is warranted, but then I'll have to add width to the side seam above the crotchline and mid-thigh down to the hem. This will make for a VERY weird looking back piece on my pants.

The other option was to remove it from the back inseam at the top, tapering to 6" down. The only problem there is if I do that, I'll get wrinkles pointing to the inseam to let it back out. Solving one problem creates another. Really a catch 22.

Maybe I'll just bite the bullet and do a vertical seamline from waist to hem on the pants as a design detail. This will also help me tweak the area to reduce the fullness. So many options, don't know which route to take at this point.

But anyway, I'm going to finish my first pair of capris on the pattern and then move on to my cream-colored linen ones.

That's a plan :) !

New Projects

This morning DD#2 asked when I was going to make her second pair of pajama pants with the fabric we bought back in March. I told her, "Maybe today." So today I cut out her pair in the flannel-backed satin I bought from JoAnn's with a Simplicity pajama pants pattern--same one as before.

Also, I cut out a pair of capris with the computer-generated pants pattern from (maybe?) the Wild Ginger website from about 3 years ago. In a sudden brainiac (or maybe brainless) moment, I decided to pull out the Hot Patterns Jeanious Jean pattern that I haven't whipped up yet. What I did was copy the crotch curve from the HP pattern onto my computer-generated pattern. I tried the pattern on in tissue and am hoping for the best. The backside looked pretty good when I turned around in the mirror.

That's pretty much it for today. I wore my blue knit top with the black band with crystals out today. One of my friends gave me a compliment on my top too. That made me happy. The unhappy thing is finding the right bra where the bra straps just won't peek out. I was at Walmart yesterday and was looking at the stick-on bra cups. Only problem was virtually every box was open--they were all picked over! I'll have to look online for them. Any suggestions as to where?

Either that or make my own special type of bra. Someone reviewed a good bra book at Patternreview the other day and I'm hoping I remembered to save it to favorites. Bras are so darn expensive anyway, although the idea of making my own bra for the heck of it doesn't do anything for me. Just need one or two special ones with special straps that go a specific way with certain styles.

That's all for now. I'm beat and have to get to bed.

My Favorite Jean

No, I'm not talking about pants either. I'm talking about Jean. As in Jean Haas. Several days ago I got an email from one of my favorite bloggers who was thinking about taking Jean's Darting Below the Beltline class over at Patternreview. I took that class (gosh, was it really 3 years ago???) and absolutely loved it! Jean uses technology for her on-line class instruction that I had never seen before taking her class. It is really awesome. Truly, you get out of her class what you put into it. Several class members who took her class with me and were really involved will concur as per the comments in my class review at Patternreview.

So, that leads to me to one of my projects I worked on today. I decided to make the cream-colored linen capri pants to go with my tie-dye Threads top. Hmm...which pattern to use??? I decided on a pants pattern that I downloaded from maybe PMB? All I remember is that it was some website that was trying to sell their pattern software which had two free downloads, and one was pants to the custom measurements that were input into the program. I made a pair of jeans, which later turned into capris (forgot about progressive shrinkage with my denim) from them and really liked the fit. Yeah, the back had the butt bags and the darts were a little off, but overall the crotch length was really nice.

So I pull out that pattern, dusted off my Sandra Betzina fitting book, and worked on the baggy butt alteration of creating a horizontal wedge just below the crotch line and removing a 1/2" of excess. We'll see how that helps out the fit. It *will* help, I just don't know to what degree.

Then I checked out my darts. This is where Jean comes in. When I first made these pants, I didn't know where, nor how long, my darts should be on the front and back pattern pieces. But since that time, I have much more fitting knowledge. I pulled out my duct tape pattern from the Darting Below the Beltline class and remarked my darts as per duct tape pattern.

Below are pics of the front and back. The "old" darts that were generated from the pattern are green. The "new" darts are marked in purple. Quite a difference in length, width, and placement, huh? That makes a huge difference in fit. After taking Jean's class, I also realized that a dart of improper width, length, and placement can also make one look heavier, rather than more shapely. A "misguided" dart has the unfortunate ability to add bulk, maybe poof is a more appropriate word, to places where we don't want to look bigger.

For example, on my front pants pattern piece, the original dart was too close the the CF. It was also WAY too long and far too wide. I'm fairly flat in the front, necessitating only a dart that is a total of a 1/4" width. The dart has to be placed where the bulge is, which is right at my hip bone. So I redrew the dart where it was supposed to be along with the length and width.


How did I know to do this? Here is my Darting Below the Beltline waist-to-hipline pattern pieces. I line up my CF and mark the dart adjustments.

Here is my back pattern piece. Notice the difference between the pattern's original dart (green), and my new darts (purple). That is quite a difference. I actually need two darts for a better fit of varying widths and lengths. And whew! Again, the length of the dart is way too long.

Here is duct tape pattern superimposed over the original pattern. Align the CB and the proper dart placement, length, and width is evident. The change has been made.

This is actually very simplistic, but it's an brief, yet accurate, overview of how I use my knowledge from the DBB class and apply it to commercial patterns. I deal with asymetry and for the most accurate fit have to use separate left and right fronts and backs for a the best fit possible.

From my four waist-to-hip quadrants, I have developed a self-drafted pattern of a straight skirt. I have also created a second duct tape waist-to-hip mold specifically for contoured waistband skirt and pant styles. You could even create one for pants with a back yoke like a pair of jeans. So many possibilities really, all with a personal, customized fit.

This class is coming up at Patternreview, and I highly recommend it. (NAYY) Jean is one of my favorite instructors and you get out of the class what you put into it.


Right now I'm going to get going on my capris. The pattern is a pretty good fit, just need to work on little things here and there. I was really surprised at how good the initial fit was from the downloaded from the sample website program. I'm hoping these will enventually be TNT with a little bit of tweaking.

They Broke Me Down!

First off, let me just say that I don't particular care for New Look patterns. For some reason, maybe it's just the one or two I've used, they're such a bear to fit to my figure. However, I've seen many cute garments in pattern reviews that are so lovely. But still...nothing broke me down.

Until...seeing so many of Robin's great garments made from NL patterns (chip, chip, chip--the breaking down process had begun), then the whammo of Cennetta's version of this dress last week. That just did it. On my last trip to Walmart, I snagged the last envelope of NL 6749 pictured below:

What???? This can't be the same pattern as Cennetta's dress! Hers is much more beautiful than the pattern cover. I would have passed this over big time if I did not see her version. However, her lovely dress broke me down. And now I've added an NL pattern to my stash--first time in about 4 years.

So we'll see what happens. I really like that View D. However, the end of summer is quickly approaching and I don't know if I'll get to it. It would make a nice holiday party dress though.

But yeah, they both broke me down. I got the pattern--the only one added to my stash since March. Sure hope my eventual version will turn out as lovely as Cennetta's.

No sewing for today. Just nice sewing thoughts while doing housework.