Friends, it is a rainy dreary day here in Indiana. Quite appropriate as my hubby's company announced a major lay-off looming before year's end! My mind is whirling over this. I will probably get in to this a little more down the road. But today, we focus on sewing.
First some commentary about the Misty Jeans pattern. If you have already sewn ahead, I want to know how your jeans are fitting. I have had one sewist state that her jeans were small. Like, can't get them past her knees small. Aside from her, everyone else has stated that the jeans are big. I, myself sewed the size 30, when the pattern showed I needed a size 34. I sized down because my fabric had a good amount of stretch though.
There also seems to be some variance with how the pdf pattern is fitting. So, please tell me what you are finding friends.
Sewing the side seams of the Misty Jeans is actually a pretty easy step. It is just one long line of stitches on each side of the jeans. It is so easy that I forgot to take pictures. Since you are sewing this seam in the direction that your fabric doesn't have any stretch you can use a straight stitch for the entire seam. I used a 2.5 stitch length.
Here is the picture I posted on Instagram after I sewed the side seams (did you see the floral denim I posted yesterday?).
The fit in the behind is pretty good. I could still use a sway back adjustment, but for the most part, I am pleased with the fit of the backside. In the front there is a slight amount of pulling from the crotch seam towards the upper hip. Some would call this a diagonal smile wrinkle. This indicates that I need to lengthen the crotch. Because of this, when I revisit this pattern, I will add length to the height of the crotch as well as the depth.
The biggest offender here to my eyes is the saggy baggy knee look that I have going on. This is because I have knock knees. I was born with knock knees. My own family teased me endlessly about the fact that I couldn't stand at attention with my ankles together. On my next pair of Misty Jeans, I will need to make a knock knee adjustment. The easiest way to explain this is that you redraft the lower portion of the pattern to match how your legs come down from your hips.
Way back in 2011 Colette released a Pants Fitting Cheat Sheet. This little sheet is a wealth of knowledge for figuring out what is wrong with the fit of your pants. Most of the adjustments are linked to tutorials that will help you perform the adjustments. My best advice is to start from the waist and work your way down fixing the fitting issues with pants. Once you figure out what your own personal fitting issues are, you will be able to quickly make these adjustments to every pants pattern.
Because I will not be able to make the crotch adjustments needed, I will go ahead and put the waistband in to these pants. They are wearable as is, they just need the mentioned adjustments to look their best. As for the legs/knee issues, I will be taking them in from just above the knee on the side seams. This isn't a true fix to the knock knee issue, but it will help some. If you are bow legged, you would want to take the leg in from the inseam. If you have legs that come straight down from your hips (the way patterns are drafted) but needed to take the legs in, you would want to take the pants in equally from the inseam and the side seam. Does this make sense?
With this pattern, it would be much easier to make adjustments before you put the waistband in the pants, just make sure that you are pulling the pants up to where they would fit with the waistband in.
I hope this portion of the sewalong hasn't been too confusing. If you need help figuring out the adjustments that you need, don't hesitate to comment below.
Up Next: Adding the Elastic Waist and the Finishing Touches
First some commentary about the Misty Jeans pattern. If you have already sewn ahead, I want to know how your jeans are fitting. I have had one sewist state that her jeans were small. Like, can't get them past her knees small. Aside from her, everyone else has stated that the jeans are big. I, myself sewed the size 30, when the pattern showed I needed a size 34. I sized down because my fabric had a good amount of stretch though.
There also seems to be some variance with how the pdf pattern is fitting. So, please tell me what you are finding friends.
Sewing the side seams of the Misty Jeans is actually a pretty easy step. It is just one long line of stitches on each side of the jeans. It is so easy that I forgot to take pictures. Since you are sewing this seam in the direction that your fabric doesn't have any stretch you can use a straight stitch for the entire seam. I used a 2.5 stitch length.
Here is the picture I posted on Instagram after I sewed the side seams (did you see the floral denim I posted yesterday?).
The fit in the behind is pretty good. I could still use a sway back adjustment, but for the most part, I am pleased with the fit of the backside. In the front there is a slight amount of pulling from the crotch seam towards the upper hip. Some would call this a diagonal smile wrinkle. This indicates that I need to lengthen the crotch. Because of this, when I revisit this pattern, I will add length to the height of the crotch as well as the depth.
The biggest offender here to my eyes is the saggy baggy knee look that I have going on. This is because I have knock knees. I was born with knock knees. My own family teased me endlessly about the fact that I couldn't stand at attention with my ankles together. On my next pair of Misty Jeans, I will need to make a knock knee adjustment. The easiest way to explain this is that you redraft the lower portion of the pattern to match how your legs come down from your hips.
Way back in 2011 Colette released a Pants Fitting Cheat Sheet. This little sheet is a wealth of knowledge for figuring out what is wrong with the fit of your pants. Most of the adjustments are linked to tutorials that will help you perform the adjustments. My best advice is to start from the waist and work your way down fixing the fitting issues with pants. Once you figure out what your own personal fitting issues are, you will be able to quickly make these adjustments to every pants pattern.
Because I will not be able to make the crotch adjustments needed, I will go ahead and put the waistband in to these pants. They are wearable as is, they just need the mentioned adjustments to look their best. As for the legs/knee issues, I will be taking them in from just above the knee on the side seams. This isn't a true fix to the knock knee issue, but it will help some. If you are bow legged, you would want to take the leg in from the inseam. If you have legs that come straight down from your hips (the way patterns are drafted) but needed to take the legs in, you would want to take the pants in equally from the inseam and the side seam. Does this make sense?
With this pattern, it would be much easier to make adjustments before you put the waistband in the pants, just make sure that you are pulling the pants up to where they would fit with the waistband in.
I hope this portion of the sewalong hasn't been too confusing. If you need help figuring out the adjustments that you need, don't hesitate to comment below.
Up Next: Adding the Elastic Waist and the Finishing Touches
I need that same knock knee adjustment. I'm surprised that it's not covered more places--it seems to be pretty common among curvy sewists.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I'm not past the paper pattern alteration stage at this point (I got sidetracked by Halloween costume sewing), but from just doing a paper pattern comparison, the Mistys are a pretty good match for the front of my favorite Burda pants pattern, but the Burda pants have a LOT more room in the booty. I wonder if booty size is accounting for some of the discrepancy in people's experiences?
Also, layoffs suck. I've been through them. You have my full sympathy at the stress that announcement must be causing you and your husband as you wait to find out who's affected.
Yeah, you would think it would be covered more places. Maybe a good tutorial for the CSC.
DeleteCould be the booty for sure. I am wondering if the PDF is getting printed incorrectly.
This is our 4th layoff with my husband's company! You would think we would be used to it by now. We have plans in place should my husband be on the chopping block, but it is his employees that we are more worried about. Laying people off right before the holidays is just wrong!
Yeah, you would think it would be covered more places. Maybe a good tutorial for the CSC.
DeleteCould be the booty for sure. I am wondering if the PDF is getting printed incorrectly.
This is our 4th layoff with my husband's company! You would think we would be used to it by now. We have plans in place should my husband be on the chopping block, but it is his employees that we are more worried about. Laying people off right before the holidays is just wrong!
It's been a great sew along. You're a great instructor. I didn't actually buy the Misty pattern because I have a great pants sloper (self customized) and I use it for all my pants. So, I read every post and I will use the instructions to 'franken-hack' my own jeans. BTW, I love the fabric you used.
ReplyDeleteThanks Robin! I got it from fabric.com. I love it! I am trying to be thorough. I remember some of those new sewer frustrations that I had, and am trying to help save some other sewist from all that anxiety! Can wait to see your franken-hack!
DeleteI made a wearable muslin, and those were a bit big all over. The difference between my hips and waist is bigger than the pattern indicated, and I made a bigger size to be sure I could get the waistband over my butt! So I probably could have printed and made the next size down, but instead I took 0.75 inch out from waist to hem on both front and back pattern pieces. I might still need to take a little out of the legs but I will wait and see how they are after wearing.
ReplyDeleteThis pair I made for the sewalong seems to be a little bit of a nicer denim (I paid $2/yard for the wearable muslin denim!) with better recovery. It really shows me that what people say is true, that even the same pattern in different fabrics gives you different fit issues.