Recently I wrote a blog post on how to make an elasticated waistband. In that post, I did some altering to a pants pattern to make it elasticated waistband. The original pattern has a waistband, dart and side invisible zip opening. Although I could have made what exactly the pattern said. I just wanted to make life easier for myself by just making an elasticated waistband instead. The fabric being neoprene had a lot of stretches. This in order to make a good fit and makes it easier to get in and out of the pants.
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How to do – Altering a pants pattern
It is fairly easy to do. You will be amazed by how much money you can save instead of going to buy another pattern. It’s a basic pattern manipulation as pattern cutters call it. While this post it’s not about drafting a pants pattern from scratch it’s rather adjusting existing patterns to suit what you would like to sew. It takes one sewing skills to another level.
First of all trace out the original pattern. Note where is the darts and waistband sits. If you take in the dart on the pattern you should find that the pattern pieces sit nicely on top of another. If it doesn’t possibly there is another piece (ie. zip flap) that needs to be attached together. This will form the exact sewn and size when the garment is sewn.
Tape the darts and waistband together with cellophane tape. This now your adjusted pattern. It is very straight forward to do. This is there is no pockets or zip flaps around. If there is all those pieces need to be taken into consideration. The measurements of the end result of the pants are sometimes in those pieces. Like in a hip yoke pockets pattern.
If any adjustments you want to make on the pattern do it here. As it’s elasticated there is always a bit of leeway of the fit. I am sure there are different ways to altered or to manipulate a pants pattern. In my opinion, this one is just a simple straight forward way to altering a pattern. There many more ways to alter a pattern by adding gathers to make it more loose fitting.
I have also got a post on how to sew stretch fabric. Here is the link. Thank you for dropping by. For more fitting details here is a link to an online fitting your own pants and skirt pattern.
