PANTS THAT FIT

I have been using a tnt pants pattern that I made from Hot Patterns Razer pant for years now. It doesn't really look like it any more, but the back L shaped crotch is a really good shape for me and is easy to customize. However, that was when I was thinner and just adding to the side seams was not doing it any more. I had also tried to fine tune some imperfections and ended up making it worse. So, I started almost from scratch with a version of the pant and a new muslin. I pulled out my Threads, issues 119 and 122 for Joyce Murphy's articles on pants fitting. I am a total convert to her method and gave them a good reread. Well no wonder my pants didn't fit anymore. I needed more body space and instead of just dropping the back crotch for my lowered butt, I needed to really take it in all the way up to the waist. Or, on the pattern I needed to remove some of the pattern at cb, taking it down into the crotch and disappearing it before I got to the crotch point. This in effect gives me a lowered back crotch which you can really see in my pattern, and the needed room. Remember that if you take out some of the pattern at cb, you also give yourself more crotch length which I really needed at cb the waist. If you just try and add it to the top you will get wrinkles below the rear end. You really do, especially if you have a flat rear end like I do. Since this makes the circumfrence of the pant smaller, what you remove from cb you need to add at the hip blending into the thigh. I also needed more room in the front, which gave me added crotch length that I needed there as well. It works.
Here is a picture of my pants pattern. You can see where I added to the side seams. If you click on the photo a nice big one will open.

You'll also notice that I have added 2 darts to the front and one to the back. I actually had three in the back too, but when I made my flat tuchas adjustment the one closest to cb became very narrow, so I divided up the middle one and added to each dart and took off a small amount at the waist. I have a high rounded hip and a good 10" between my waist and upper hip. It is too short a curve to sew well. When I made my muslin, I only had a small amount of extra fabric between my knee and tusch( I long ago took some of this out) so I used this very good and easy method from Ann Rowley. I have used several different methods for this, and this one is pretty much the easiest, espesially if you don't have much to remove.
Next up. The pants on me. I am trying to decide if I want to add a regular waistband or make or face them. It is much easier to adjust pants with a waistband. We'll see

ON THE GARDENING FRONT
The deer are out in force these days. I have seen small herds every day, and Saturday they boldly stared us down almost up to our deck. Time to start spraying. Mr Nicky, our almost 17 year old dog is just too old to chase them any more.
I think that I need to plant some blue or purple crocuses under my Hamamelis. I will have to plant them in cages or if I can find some, big coffee cans (we buy beans) taking out the top and bottom so the voles don't eat them. That's why I don't have any anymore. But they bloom at the same time and would look very lovely together.