Tailoring Pants: Some Tips.

The quest to rid my linen closet of the clothing I've saved for refashioning continues.

I love refashioning clothing. I was given these black pants by a friend and they’re a size or two too big. Here are the ‘before’ pictures:


I decided to try my hand at refashioning and giving ‘tailoring’ a shot.
Here are a few ‘after’ pictures:



I made a few adjustments. Here are the basic steps I took: (instructions below the collage)

1. I opened up the waistband at the back of the pants. This exposed the seam at the seat, where there was lots of extra fabric. I took in this seam first, without cutting anything, and tried them on after each adjustment.

2. You can see my stitches. This made the waist fit better. It did not affect the hips (you can see in the ‘after’ pictures that the pants are still too large through the hip). To take in the hips, you’d just open the waistband at the sides to expose those seams.

3. Next, I opened the hem near the inseam at the leg. I just opened the inseam b/c I wasn’t adjusting the outseam stitching at all. I wanted to make the pants more fitted. Originally, I wanted to make ‘skinny pants’ but lost my nerve after getting stuck in a pair at Target! Yes, I tried on some skinny pants and had a hard time getting them off again. Yikes.

4. After I had the leg width where I wanted it on the first leg, I used it as a pattern to mark the second leg with chalk and then sew. I cut this fabric and zig-zagged the edge. A serger would do finish the seam much more nicely. But I don’t have one.

I will let you know that I ended up with a slight puzzle at the crotch seam to make everything match up. But to solve it, I just moved it around it from the outside until it looked correct.  I was able to stitch it from the inside and everything matched up.

I have no idea if that was just luck; part of the reason this was a problem was because I didn’t want to remove the zipper and take in the front seam at all.

The pants really fit much better now!

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