Category Archives: Pattern Alteration

Vogue 8940 Pants Fitting, Round 2

I’m inviting you to watch as I attempt, once again, to fit the pattern for Vogue 8940 mens trousers.  You can see my previous article in this series here; I’m picking up where that article leaves off.

I will try to iterate through the process of making muslins until I get one that has good fit.  My expectations are set that this could require several iterations. Unlike my disappointing experience with the Thread Theory Jedediah Pants pattern, I actually think I can get a working pattern out of Vogue 8940.

My Resource

Most of my guidance for this round of fitting has come from Sarah Veblen’s course on PatternReview, Fun with Fitting: Pants. I’ve also purchased Veblen’s fitting book, which has a chapter on pants fitting and supplements the course material.

The nice thing about the PatternReview course is that you can ask Ms. Veblen questions directly via the class forum. She doesn’t answer fitting questions specific to your situation, but she will answer general questions and anything about the class content.

I’m not going to repeat her course here, because I don’t want to give away other people’s content. But I will try to demonstrate how I attempt to use Veblen’s fitting methodology in my particular situation. Continue reading →

Review: Fun with Fitting – Pants

Since my last article on the Vogue 8940 pants muslin, I’ve been taking an online course in pants fitting which has been really helpful.

Fun With Fitting: Pants

PatternReview.com was offering its online course “Fun with Fitting: Pants” on sale over the holidays. It’s taught by Sarah Veblen, a fitting expert who is author of the book The Complete Photo Guide To Perfect Fitting (Amazon link).  Reader David Coffin suggested it to me, and I’m glad I followed up on it.

What I really like about the class is that it takes a conceptual approach, rather than a “spot this problem, apply canned solution” approach. A big problem I’ve had with fitting is that I invariably wind up with a situation that doesn’t match anything depicted in the reference I’m working from.

In the course, Sarah urges you to watch through all the videos, and read through all the printed material, even for the models and fitting situations that don’t necessarily match yours. Over the course of the fitting examples, she explains the principles behind her fitting assessment and explains why she’s making the correction she’s chosen.  The idea is to enable you to visualize the problem and solution in your own head, so you can reason through fitting situations on your own. Continue reading →

Every Threads Magazine Article on Pants Fitting

As part of my ongoing project to learn pants fitting, I’ve been searching for more learning resources. I went to the San Francisco Public Library and found three books on fitting:

  • Pants for Real People, the Palmer/Pletsch book on pants fitting.
  • Vogue Fitting, a book from the ’80s with a chapter on pants fitting.
  • Fabulous Fit, a modern book featuring the seam method of pattern alteration.

I’ve also been spending some time with my copy of the Threads Magazine DVD Archive looking for articles on pants fitting. The Threads DVD Archive has to be one of the best sewing instructional purchases I’ve made; there’s literally hundreds of articles in there I find fascinating. It was difficult for me to look through the archive because I kept running into the temptation to go off on a tangent looking at some other interesting article.

What’s more, the magazine issues are all standard PDF files, without copy protection, so it’s straightforward to copy them onto a tablet or similar device for ease of reading.  Thank you Threads magazine for trusting your readers.

My copy of the archive goes through the end of 2012, up to issue 164. To find the articles, I used the online, searchable index at the Threads website, but their search interface is quite poor (both online and the version that comes with the disc). So I had to do a lot of legwork on my own to filter through these articles. Continue reading →

It’s Not You, It’s the Pattern

I really appreciate all the constructive critical feedback I received in my previous article on pants fitting.  I value the critical feedback every bit as much as I do the “Great work!” style comments, because they truly help me learn and get better as a sewist.  So thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a comment.

More Jed Fitting

Last time, I had promised to show you the photos of the latest rounds of fitting on the Jedediah Pants pattern.  Picking up where we left off, this photo shows the fitting session after I added the wedge of fabric back into the crotch seam, at the top of the pants back and just below the yoke piece.

I took the liberty of adding a waistband to get a better feel for how the waist hangs in back. I also added a zipper in front to make the fitting easier.

IMG_1672 Continue reading →

Pants Fitting: Perfect is the Enemy of Good

I have started a new project; pants based on the Jedediah Pants pattern from Thread Theory Designs.

This “new” project is actually a continuation of the “Breakfast Club Wardrobe” project, though since it had gone on for so long I’m splitting it into two projects: the shirts (completed) and now the pants.

Given the amount of effort involved in producing a hand-made garment, I’ve come to realize that the effort is wasted if the fit and style aren’t also right.  So I’m really trying to get the fit right before making three pairs of pants based on the pattern.

For readers new to the blog, this is not the first time I’ve wrestled with fitting this pattern.  I’ve made several past attempts to fit these pants:

This latest round of fitting picks up where I left off. Continue reading →