" I don't know why you don't just go buy new pants"

My husband said after the the um-teenth time I asked him to look at my butt.  I know how weird that sounds, but I was working on my pants pattern; trying to fix the back crotch to remove the "smiles" from under my butt.  Oh if only it was that easy, Dear Husband.

I got into this project because I was upset with a certain plus size store constantly discontinuing the line of jeans I wear and having to launch a new jeans search every couple years.  That and the closure of another plus size store that I frequented, I felt this was the only option left.

I think I was able to take care of those "smiles", and now I'm working on narrowing the leg, but as you can see I now have other wrinkle lines to deal with.  Glenda is out of the office next week, so I can't seek her advice.  So until then I guess it's up to me to experiment and see what happens.

Fixing the front crotch

Yesterday I spend the afternoon drawing up another pattern to work with, but this time I got smart.  The first two patterns I drew, if for some reason I needed to compare it to the master pattern I couldn't do it very easily because I didn't remember what measurements I used from the master, or they wouldn't line up like they should have or I had made so many changes that it wasn't the same pattern.  While I was drawing up the new one I decided to write the measurements next to each dot so if I needed to match it up with the master again everything would be where it was suppose to be.  Using a grain board, I also marked the high hip, low hip and crotch line in case I needed to make adjustments in those areas.  It's a good thing I did too, because after making my muslin, I had to use the low hip line to adjust the center front.  I had to take out about 1 1/2 inches.  It pulled the front crotch up slightly and just looks better.

Front view after shorting center front

Front view before shorting center front.  See the fabric pooling at the bottom of the zipper

I also used the grain board to draw the hem line, since I was having issues with the inseam hem pulling up and I wasn't sure it was straight in the first place.   Just looking at these photos I do think the inseam is hanging straighter but I won't know for sure until I finish the rest of my adjustments.

Next I'll be working on the back and tapering the legs.  Glenda suggests I add 5/8 of an inch to the back crotch point.  She's mentioned it before but I was being a bonehead and didn't want to.  I think it's time I do what I'm told.  She also mentioned needing more room in the high hip.  Another something I didn't want to do because I'm worried about getting the elephant ear effect that I had in the first pair, but my husband told me just to try it and see.  Glenda's out of the office next week, so I'll have time to do a pair my way and another pair her way and see which one looks better.  I have a feeling I'm going to loose.

No wonder it doesn't fit

I've been fighting with this pattern for at least 2 weeks and have come to the conclusion that I just need to start over.  I've measured, remeasured and remeasured again, and decided I made the crotch curve to short and no amount of adding to the crotch points is ever going to make a difference.  Last night I added 2 inches to the back, which brought it back up to my waistline, but it threw off the rest of the waist edge, because I had such a sharp angle from the center back to the side seams.  I know I should have added 2 inches to the front too, but I don't need more room in the front.  I'm going back to my original crotch curve measurements from the first pair of pants.  I need to get the crotch curve figured out before I can even think of making other adjustments.  I found a crotch curve tutorial, and guess that will be my next step if I can't get it to fit right.  So as much as I hate to say it, it's back to the drawing board.

Learning curve

Using what I learned from my first pair of pants, I decided to try another pair with some modification.  My first pair, although wearable, needed some work.  The waist was to big, the hips were to full, the legs to wide, ect.  The second pair I wanted to fix all of that.  So I pulled out my tracing paper and using the correct measurements, drew up another pattern.  I wasn't sure how to go about narrowing the leg, so following the Sure Fit master pattern, I drew seam lines for 13 sizes and sewed the tracing paper together until I got to my desired width.  I'm thinking I could probably go down another inch or so and I found this video to be helpful for future reference, but I have other issues to take care of first. 

I realized from these pics that I have a tilted waist and need to make the front quite a bit shorter than the back.  Which also affects my crotch curve, giving me a very short front curve and a long back curve.  I measured using a crotch-o-meter and found my front is 13" and my back is 22".  Looking at these pants that means I need to raise the center back about an inch, and add a 1/2" to 5/8" to the back crotch point.  Hopefully that will take care of the little wedgie and bring my waistband up over the top of my underwear.  The other issue I'm having and I didn't notice it on the first pair until they were done, is the inseam pulls up.  You can really see it in the back view.  I tried to correct it by putting a wedge in the inseam to lengthen it, but that just made it worse because I had all this extra fabric in the inner thigh.  Turns out I did the opposite of what I should of done.  I need to take a wedge out at the side seam.  Here Glenda shows how to fix this.

This pair fits pretty well in the waist and hips, if I can take care of the back crotch issues I think I getting close to where I want to be.

Bad Romance

Knitting this sweater was like a relationship gone bad from the very beginning. At first it was new and exciting. I couldn’t wait to spend my evenings curled up on the couch, running my fingers though its yarn, but soon it became tedious and boring. I’ll admit to having a wandering eye; and soon I was just going through the motions.

About a month into it, I decided I needed a break. I went on to pursue other interests, while the sweater just sat in a lump behind the couch.

Eventually, I went back to it and tried to make it work, but the sweater just wasn’t cooperating. I first had a feeling that it was over when I realized it wasn’t going to fit, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I thought if I just kept working on it everything would turn out ok.

After talking to some knitting friends, who reassured me it would be ok to call it quits since I really wasn’t happy, I pulled the yarn winder out and started the break up process. Sadly I watched as row by row my sweater disappeared, but my friends were right, I do feel better. I’m able to pursue other interests without the guilt, and my sweater has gone back into several balls of yarn to be used in another project.

Oh, Sweater, I loved the idea of you, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

The Absent Minded Seamstress

So my pants are done, and I'm cleaning up before starting something else, since it looks like a sewing store blew up in my basement.  My sewing area is so small it's sometimes difficult to keep all my work in that one spot, and my supplies gets spread all over the house.  This could be the reason why  I have 3 seam rippers, several marking pencils, two scissors, 3-4 things of unopened elastic strips, I just found the pressing ham I bought a few years ago, ect.   Yesterday I was looking for the open roll of tracing paper because I needed to draft a new pattern peice.  When I couldn't find it I had to open another roll, and then found the missing one today in the dinning room.

I really try to stay organized, but sometimes creativity strikes and I can't be bothered to put things back where they belong.  Before I start another project I'm going to try really hard to get everything put away, so maybe I'll have more room to work and spend less time looking for my supplies.

Lessons learned the hard way

It's a good thing we can learn from our mistakes, because I've learned quite a few things in the last week.

Lesson 1  Photos can be/are deceiving
I had been seeking advice from Glenda by posting my work in progress photos and waiting for her feedback.  A lot of her feedback was helpful, but there were just some things she was seeing in the photos that I wasn't seeing in mirror.  The major one was, she said I had a flat derriere and need to make the adjustment for that. If you see me in real life you'd know I do not have a flat derriere, it protrudes out from my low back quite noticeably.  I'm not saying I have a Kim Kardashian backside, but there's more there than I would like and you don't really see it in the photos.

Lesson 2 Check the width of the fabric before you buy
Because I drafted my own pattern, I wasn't exactly sure how much fabric to buy.  I guesstimated based on how much muslin I used, but didn't take into account the pocket pieces or waistband and was able to get by with 3 1/2 yards.  So to be one the safe side I bought 4 yards of twill thinking I'd have enough, but it wasn't until I started laying the pieces out that I realized I bought 44" wide fabric instead of 58", which meant I had to cut each piece individually and when I got to the last piece I was short on fabric.  So back to the store, where I bought more than I needed in case I made anymore stupid mistakes.  I have enough left over to make myself a pair of shorts.  If only I wore shorts.


Lesson 3 Measure twice, cut once
This lesson doesn't just apply to carpentry.  Even though I thought I took meticulous measurements, I ended up cutting the front pieces about an inch longer than the back pieces.  Wasn't a huge deal, since they were going to be carpris, so I just cut the extra inch off to even them up. '

Lesson 4 Don't wait until end to try it on
I was so excited to finish as I was getting closer to end that I skipped trying them on; figureing I had made all the nessicary adjustments on the muslin.  I had put a dart in the center back seam like Glenda suggested, but once I got the waistband on and then tried them on, that dart pulled the waistband down to far and a good deal of my underwear showed.  If I had put a waistband on the muslin or at least tried them on before sewing the waistband in, I might have caught this problem that before I finished sewing and saved myself the time to rip the waistband out and re-cut another one because I put in on wrong in the first place.

Lesson 5 Double check your measurements
This one is very similar to lesson 3 and as I found out today, after doing the waistband the second time, my husband measured me wrong.  He measured my waist to be 3-4 inches bigger than it really is, so not only is the waist band to big that pants are to big.

Although I had my issues sewing these pants, overall I'd say it was mostly successfull.  I think I can fix the waistband issue with a drawstring on the inside to make them wearable and they are a better fit than anything in my closet and much better than the last pair I tried to sew from a real pattern.  I'm working on a new design and will be sure to make the measurement changes on the new pattern.