Monday, January 29, 2007

Knowing when to stop ...

I have been fiddling with the back of the Dragon Pants off and on for a while now, waiting to see if I can achieve a nice fall in the back. The problem? Some vertical fullness directly below the crotch curve that was not correctable by a horizontal dart alone. What I have done is to deepen the pant side of the yoke seamline at CB by 5/8". I also deepened the CB seam below the corner point of that seam (this "curve" is an almost right angle). I also narrowed the inner leg piece at the center leg seamline, but I think that needs to be set back to normal as it gives a bit of a pinched look at that seam. Good thing I have not trimmed anything! What I am left with is this:


What I see is more wrinkles at the bottom of the curve. Will this be cured by clipping the seam? Do I need to raise that yoke seam more yet and add depth to the yoke to rid myself of that wedgie feeling? In other patterns, I have had to make the dart about 1", maybe that is what this needs to remove that little bit. OF course all this means that I need to add a smidge to the s.a. @ the s.s. for comfort in addition to the removal of the vertical front dart. The standard front vertical dart is included in the shaping of that seamline, so I removed it by reducing the s.a., straightening the seamline to allow me to zip the pant.

Could I have finally have found a standard adjustment for any pant pattern? A 1" horizontal dart and a really deep crotch curve at its base. OR am I just being obsessive in my search for nice fitting pants? And finally, which fabric in the stash will finally end up as a dragon?
Relaxed and fluid Pants, designed for medium to light weight fabrics like washed silk, rip-stop nylon or even panne velvet...think drapey!
I have some lightweight wool in a chocolate brown that was on tap but I wonder if that will do. It might just be a bit too lightweight.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:49 am

    I love that I can make the pictures bigger! I see that the grain line in the fabric of the pant leg run at a slant up from the center back seam to the side seam. I don't work with the horizontal dart adjustment much but maybe the grainline was thrown off during this adjustment? You need to lengthen the outer side seam by maybe an inch in the back pant section. Can you do this by releasing from the yoke? It looks like there is more fabric needed to be released on the right side than the left.

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  2. Anonymous2:52 am

    And oh yes, clipping the curve and stretching it (shaping it) with the iron will change how the pant fits sometimes quite amazingly

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  3. Instead of actually doing a dart, what I did was to lower the yoke seamline, so the grain line is probably affected. I think I will put everything back to normal and then clip the curve to see what happens. Sometimes the obvious can be right ...of course, I can always just copy the curve form the skinny jeans or my sloper, right?

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