Gappy Pants

I have a personal problem.

My pants never fit.  Most jeans or slacks I try on have a huge gap in the waist band.  Hello, I really ought to be shopping for pants that are known to be draped for the girl with curves, but... I am a slow learner.   I've purchased only a pair or two of "curvy" jeans.  And even then, I have a pair of Gap Curvy jeans that still have an inch and a half gap at the waist band.

I mentioned this personal problem to my expert-seamstress-and-quilting friend Marlene awhile back and she said that she would show me this "easy alteration."  Well, today she did!  I took some photos, and while I am not writing this as a full blown tutorial, I hope that it could help someone else with this little, um, ample-bottomed problem.  :)

So, Marlene jumped right in and helped me rip apart those Gap-py jeans.  She was so confident... she just went to town with her seamripper and these cool Fisker scissor-y things.

• Here's Marlene removing the two back belt loops (this was after determining that the pants were too big by 1.5 inches.... and the way they were constructed, she saw it would be easy to take the waistband in from the middle, though you can do it from the side seams as well).

• Her Fiskar scissors have a very, very sharp point and of course this is a sturdy tool, perfect for taking out heavy-duty denim stitching.

• She then took out several inches of top-stitching.... that's what was attaching the waistband to the pants.

• Here is the waist band, separated from the pants for about 6 inches.

• She ripped out the center seam on the waist band.... this is where we would sew a new seam at 3/4 of an inch from the original seam, in order to take the waistband in by 1.5 inches.

• She had to cut open the facing (the inside part of the waistband) because there was no seam there already.

• I don't have a shot of the next step, but all we did was sew the waist band back together, at 3/4 of an inch in from the original seam.

• Once we did that, Marlene saw that we would have to take in a little bit of the back of the pants, but thankfully there were already darts there.  All we had to do was make the darts bigger.... see how there's a triangle there?  The stitching on the right was our new seam, making the dart bigger and therefore taking in the seat of the pants just a bit, in order for the now-smaller waistband to attach properly.

• Below is the inside of the waistband.... see the huge seam allowance in the middle?   That's the 3/4 of an inch taken in on each side.  Also, side note... see the red pen on the right of the photo?  That is a Fons and Porter marking tool.... it's like a mechanical pencil, but with white, or green or pink or whatever colored lead.  I never knew I needed one, but now I know that I do!  The white was perfect for marking on denim, especially because it is more precise than tailor's chalk.

• Now with bigger darts and a smaller waistband, it was time to top-stitch the whole thing together.  Marlene pinned for me and I sewed two seams (top of the waistband and bottom) to get the whole she-bang back together.  

• Waist band -- attached!

• We marked with the white-leaded tool where to reattach the belt loops, stitched them securely and were done.

We regretted not taking a before and after shot of me wearing the pants, but now that I think about it, that might have been a little TMI for the old blog.   Ha!

Now, I wonder if Marlene will help me again, the next time I need to do this, or if I am now ready to fly on my own!  Youtube had approximately one helpful video on this alteration when I looked a few months ago, and just now, I couldn't find it.  Hey Marlene.... want to do a video tutorial?!