Plus Size Pants Fitting and a Little Knitting on the Side

Hi Everyone,  I’ve been working on plus size pants fitting and a little knitting on the side.  (A little knitting past my bed time.)   As it turns out, these two projects are competing for my attention.  I’m on a mission to  finish my first knitted skirt & make my daughter, Anna, comfortable non-stretch pants.

Pants first.  I’ve been getting pretty great results working with women who are in the Misses’ Size Range.  Now I’m applying what I’ve learned to Plus Sizes.  What I’ve discovered is that most of what I know about pants fitting needs to be fine-tuned.  To make Anna’s pants, I started working with the size 20 Happy Pants Pattern.  I thought that I could make a few minor adjustments and end up with a pretty good fit.

First I scared myself.  I sewed the first muslin out of a stable double knit…  I know that you can’t use a non-stretch pattern with stretch fabrics, but I figured I could just snug it up a little if it was too loose.   Loose does not even begin to describe how the knit muslin fit.  It was so big, I couldn’t begin to figure out where I needed to adjust it.   (This is a friendly reminder that it’s super important to use the appropriate fabric for the pattern you’re working with!

Muslin #1

I found some non-stretch fabric and cut out another muslin… phewww… I got close, but that only counts in horse shoes…  You can see from the first muslin that the back crotch curve is too high (meaning the back rise is too short) and there isn’t enough fabric along the inseam.

Muslin #2

I carefully examined the photos of Anna where this muslin and I adjusted the pattern.  If  you want to see exactly what I did, check out last Friday’s  Fab Fit Friday Live Stream in my Fitting and Pattern Perfection Group.

Here’s how  the second muslin fit.  You can see diagonal wrinkles pointing up and down towards the inseam.  The lower diagonal wrinkles are pointing to the fact that the inseam is too short (& a prominent calf issue that I’m going to ignore for now).  I scooped over 2″ out of the back of the crotch curve to lengthen the rise and lower the back crotch curve.  Scooping can smooth the wrinkles on the back leg.  Sometimes this can also make the inseam too short.

You can fix a short inseam by lengthening the side seams at hip level.  This allows the fabric along the side seam to drop, to hang evenly with the inseam.  Or you can lengthen the inseam.   First I pinned excess fabric out at the side seam.  This looked great, totally smoothed the look of the back leg.  But Anna said that when I did that, it made the pants uncomfortable.

Muslin #3

So, I lengthened the inseam instead.  I slashed the leg from inseam to side seam approximately 2″ below the crotch point.  Then I spread the inseam 1 1/2″.  This smoothed some of the wrinkles out.  

The thing that really surprised me was that the front became too tight.  The center front edge gaped a little bit… I could pin it shut in the previous muslin.

Muslin #4

So, I added to the waistline in the front and back.  I also added to the front crotch point because from the front view the crotch looked too short, and from the back it looked like the front was pulling at the back.

Front the front and side, this muslin looks like much improved.  From the back view, it still looks like a mess.  Anna was very excited at this point because they felt very comfortable and she could sit and bend over without the waistline sliding down.

You can see from the bottom edge of the muslin that I need to add room for her calf (the fabric is getting caught on the top  of her calf).    I’m going to add room down the center of the back leg and scoop the base of the back crotch curve a little bit.  Then I’ll sew up a final muslin.   …Stay tuned for that  (I think muslin #5 will be the winner)

Now for some knitting

While I would describe the process of fitting Anna’s pants a creative process… I have other words for what I’m doing with my knitting.

I’m  working on Gwen Bortner’s  Tilt and Twirl Skirt.  I purchased this kit which included 7 skeins of beautiful lace weight yarn from Stunning Strings at Stitches SoCal last November.  At Stitches Midwest this past August, I was lucky to be Gwen’s roommate.   I was secretly hoping that all her knitting skills would magically sink in over the weekend.   Clearly that didn’t happen…

Since November, I’ve started this project over twice.  the first time I completed 2 1/2 tiers (from waistband to hem), the second time I had completed 8.   The problem I’m having is that I can’t seem to keep the right number of stitches on my needles for each block.

This is an Entrelac knitting project which means each block is connected to it’s neighbor by picking up stitches at the finished edge of the block and knitting two to connect them along the second edge.  You can see from the first photo that my starting tier (the darkest colored blocks) graduate one row bigger as they go from waist to hem.  I started with 9 stitches and 18 rows ending with 18 stitches and 36 rows.

The lightest color most clearly shows that the size of the blocks are not getting larger…  I’m fighting with myself about starting over again.   I know if I check in with Gwen, she’ll encourage me to just keep going… I think I will try to add stitches (one at a time) to the blocks to get them back to the size they should be… If I keep starting over, I’m never going to finish.

My knitting reminds me of when I first started to learn how to sew and fit patterns.  This is only my 5th project (the first three were hat and then I made two blankets for Alice’s Embrace).   So, I’m going to tell myself what I tell my sewing students…  “This is new for you… You’re doing great… keep going!”