I have made so many pants that don’t fit.
I have made several pairs of non-stretch pants in the last few months and none of them quite fit right.
I have made two pairs of Megan Nielsen Dawn Jeans and one pair of the Philippa Pants by Anna Allen. For both of them, I cut a size 14 leg and graded to 16 at the waist. My Dawn Jeans are made of a rigid duck canvas with almost no give. I have a pair of wide leg cropped Dawns cut out in a white denim, which I think will give a bit more, so we’ll see how those fit when I get around to making them.
Overall though, I’ve been pretty disappointed in the fit I’ve been getting lately. I thought it was because I wasn’t taking enough time to make adjustments as I sew (which, yes, was a problem), but I’ve come to the conclusion that I actually need to make a full tummy adjustment.
Body Denial!
I think I would have come to this conclusion sooner, but I have been a little in denial about how my body is shaped. You know how you think “well it will fit when I lose weight” or “I don’t want to make a size change because I know I’m really close to changing”… But those thoughts don’t help when nothing actually fits. And it still doesn’t fit.
I think this mindset of denial actually hinders me from my goals. If I create something I love that really fits the body I have now, that helps me love who I am and where I’m at and I think that will help me and my mindset as I train myself to make different choices.
It seems like most of the people I follow on Instagram usually make comments about how they have to grade to a smaller waist because of their large hip to small waist ratio. I rarely see anyone mention a full tummy adjustment or have a body shape more like mine. (I think this means I need to broaden the people I follow!) So I thought this might be a good blog post, so if all you people shaped like me are out there, here’s a fellow full tummy adjuster!
Resources that helped me:
I stumbled across this video by Alexandra Morgan that I think explains the logic behind the adjustment really well. She goes over how to tell if you need this type of adjustment, how to figure out how much of an adjustment you need to make, and then how to do it.
Alexandra has a lot of fit videos that are explained really well. It looks like she also has classes and her patterns go over fit, too.
Through that video, I was able to confirm that this adjustment will help me.
Telltale signs:
- All of my pants pull down at the front of the waist band. Viewing my pants from the side, I can see that the waistband is not perpindicular to the floor.
- My pants side seams pull forward at my abdomen. They stretch towards my front to give more fabric to that side.
My favorite pants that fit right now are some stretch denim Ginger Jeans. All of the pants I’ve made recently are non-stretch, so I think it’s harder for the fabric to be “borrowed” from the back of the pants and that’s part of the reason why they are so uncomfortable.
Here you can see where the seam line deviates from vertical, and where the waistline dips down in the front. 
This is a mockup of what a full tummy adjustment would look like.
Curvy Sewing Collective has a great tutorial on this, too. Pretty similar to the video – plus I like the static non-video tutorials to refer back to.
See the tutorial here.
Intended ease
Another resource I’m finding helpful is paying more attention to the intended amount of ease at each part of the body.
The waistline is meant to have about 1″ of positive ease, so you can bend, move, and sit. I think that’s where my Philippa pants went awry – I brought them in to 0″ ease and it’s pretty uncomfortable to sit in them.
Again, Alexandra has a nice tutorial on how to measure yourself, and a worksheet you can fill out to make sure your pattern has enough ease.
No pressure, people!
(If you’re a beginner sewist, please don’t feel pressured to make so many adjustments. I sew a LOT and have for many years and am just now getting to the place where I feel comfortable enough/am motivated to dig deeper and focus on fit. If you’re at that place too, awesome! If not, no worries! Just have fun!)
I haven’t actually done this adjustment yet, but I thought I’d share my research process with you all, and I’ll let you know how it goes when I do it!
Catherine Wendland 