- People often ask me about pants.

First they ask, "How do I make the legs narrower?"

Then they'll ask, "How do I make the legs wider?"

When you know a few rules, those changes become easy.

We'll do both narrower and wider legs without disturbing the grain of the pant.

You can make pant legs the style you want without altering the fit.

We'll show dress features that look great on everyone.

Some features can help you look pounds thinner.

We'll investigate flattering features that you can draft into the dress pattern you already have.

All today on Fit 2 Stitch.

(gentle electronic music) - [Announcer] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Pendelton, Vogue Fabrics, Bennos Buttons, Kai Scissors, OC Sewing, Mike Gunther Industries, and Sew Steady.

- Today we're going to talk about pants, not in fitting, 'cause we've already done fitting, but for those of you who already have great pants, I want to look at the mannequin for just a minute.

This is my yoga pant.

This is my yoga pant, this is not a pair of yoga pants that you would typically think, because what we've done is we've widened that leg.

And we've changed the styling.

That is such a simple thing to do that when we want to widen and narrow those legs, I don't want you to have to go through the fitting process again, it's just more time consuming than what it needs to be.

So we're gonna look at a couple different ways for you to accomplish exactly what you want and how to put it onto your pattern that already fits.

Keep in mind the secret here is you have to know what you want.

There's so many times I'll say to someone, "Well how many inches do you want "at the bottom of your pant?"

And they look at me, I have no idea what you're even asking me.

So that's your shopping time, now you're gonna try on pants, you're not gonna look at how they fit, 'cause they don't fit, you're just going to measure the legs that you like.

You're going to measure three things.

You're going to measure the hem, you're going to measure the width of the leg, that's probably the most important, because there's so many times, especially as we age and our tummies get larger and all those things start to change, that our legs still stay skinny.

And I've seen a lot of women who have tummies but they have these little tiny legs, and if you take the pant and go straight down from the tummy, they just look baggy and big.

So you're gonna measure the thigh, you're gonna measure the knee, and you're gonna measure the hem.

If you take the pant and fold it up in half, that halfway is about the knee.

People always say to me, "Where is the knee?"

Don't panic, just get approximately those three measurements, all right, and I'm gonna leave that like that.

Then what I can do is take it right back to the pattern.

So I'm gonna suggest to you something that's just probably so foreign you're just gonna think I've lost my head.

You're actually gonna choose the pant size pattern by the leg circumference.

Because once you know how to use a French curve, and I'm gonna lay that here, if I have small legs and I know I have small legs and I can't ever get those legs to be small enough, I'm gonna actually choose the pant by the leg, I'm gonna lay the French curve down on the side seam, I'm gonna put my finger there and kinda use it as a pivot point, and I'm just gonna pivot it out here to a larger size so that I can go all the way down and keep that smaller size and look.

And I can go from a size four to a size 18.

And then once I come up to the size I need at the top, I'll use the band that matches the size that I need.

But this is so much easier than making it and trying to take away all that yardage.

And it will already be well-proportioned on the inseam as well as the outseam.

So know what that measurement is at your thigh, because that will pick your size, you'll pivot it out to the top portion and then you'll go from there.

All right, so that's number one.

Number two what we're gonna do is we're going to, and it doesn't matter if you're changing the legs on any pant out there.

It doesn't matter if it's a yoga pant, if it's a knit, if it's a woven, if it's a jean, doesn't make a difference.

These are my go-to pants.

Love the pants, yada yada, that's what you want to find.

And again, it doesn't matter that they fit in the upper portion.

When I look at a pant pattern, I'm gonna teach you a couple things about a pant pattern, I'm gonna use the French curve as a base.

This is the fullest part of the pant.

You can see it on the front and you can see it on the back.

And we'll just draw it in so that you can see it.

That is called that line right there is called the crotch line.

Crotch line.

The crotch line is a circumference line, just like the cap line we learned earlier, that crotch line is a circumference line.

Anything above the crotch line is fit, anything below the crotch line is styling.

So this is what we're interested in changing, the shape of the crotch, the shape of the waist, the shape of the hip.

That can stay the same, my hip doesn't change, the angle of my waist doesn't change, you guys get all that.

So what I did is I dropped a grain line down from the crotch line.

So what I know about the grain line is the grain line and the crotch line are perpendicular to one another.

So, and that is actually what makes the pant leg hang straight.

If there's too much fabric and they can't hang perpendicular to one another, that's when we get all our wrinkles.

So I measured the circumference of this um, the widest part, the thigh, on my pant.

And I picked the size by here.

But then once I measure the hem, I find that to be only six inches and when I measure the bottom, I find it to be much more.

So I'm gonna narrow this according to this and you're gonna play with me.

But know that this crotch line is already where I want it to be because what it measures and what my pattern measures are the same.

I've gone to a larger size at the top if I need it, but now I need to know this leg.

This leg is much wider than what I like and I like this one.

So the first thing I have to do is drop the grain line down and I've done that.

Then what you want to know is any time you narrow a pant leg, you're gonna go equal sides of the grain line at the hem and also at the knee.

So this is only measuring six inches.

Remember again that this has no seam allowance and this has seam allowance.

So if it's six inches there, I'm gonna take and put three inches to each side of the grain line, I'm gonna put a little mark and then I would leave a seam allowance.

So that's where my pant leg is going to be and that will give me that.

And I'm gonna do the same front and back, I'm just gonna show you on the front because it's exactly the same.

Then remember, I said fold up the leg, and your knee mark is gonna be halfway.

It does not have to be exact, that's my halfway point.

And I'm gonna measure the circumference there.

That's measuring 14 inches.

So I split that side to side.

I'm sorry, that's not 14, that's seven, I doubled that automatically.

I split that side to side and it's three and a half.

So I'm gonna put three and a half there, add a seam allowance, three and a half the other way as well, and add a seam allowance.

Now what I know is this is the shaping that I want my pant to have, and I've got seam allowance included.

And then I'm gonna take this into these points right here.

Oft times on an inseam, they'll use a slightly curved edge of the French curve.

Just because the body isn't straight and it has that nice gradual curve to it, just kind of be aware of that.

As you're styling, it's really helpful to use a French curve, you'll get a little more natural connection between two points.

From the knee down, you're equal sides of the grain line.

But this is not, this is not equal sides of the grain line, so that's why we're gonna pick the pant by the thigh circumference, we're gonna narrow, narrow, and then just connect already to the thigh.

We don't have to make any changes up to the fit or up to the thigh area.

If you're gonna widen it, you're just gonna go through that same process and just reverse it.

But again, it's not just exclusive to knit.

It's knits, it's woven, it's all of that.

What we know about pants is the very most important thing we can do is keep that pant on grain.

Because if it's not on grain, the fabric will twist.

Grain line is when we allow that perpendicular hang of the cloth and again, if it's not on grain, the pant leg will twist and people have said to me over and over, "How do I fix that?"

It's not a fixable item, all right.

So we're just gonna be really careful in the first place.

And that will do with pants, with pants you know everything else.

Let's look at some dresses.

What dresses are to me in my head, and I guess a patternmaker, is they're simply long blouses.

So we have got all these great blouses, we've got our t-shirt, we've got all kinds of things and I want to take a look and see if we can't look at these dresses and apply what we know and what we've learned about pattern making or the changes that we've gone through and see if we can't figure out the changes.

So let's look first at this one right here.

Just, I love this, it's simple.

So you wanna observe a couple things first when you're trying to go through this analysis in your head.

Number one, where's the bust dart?

That'll give you a clue as to do I use my tank top, do I use my t-shirt, what do I decide to use, and then also what's my fabric.

And that will give you an indicator as to which one I use.

This one has a bust dart right there, so I'm gonna use my tank top.

You can change the neckline, you can put your French curve down and measure that, and then you can see that this is simply asymmetric where what's been taken away has started at this point and gone over there, and you can actually simply measure exactly what it is.

So take the front, open it up, do two complete fronts.

And then simply slice off the side of it.

This is two layers.

So you wanna use a fabric that's thin enough that you can actually have two layers and you won't feel like you're wrapped in, you know, bubble wrap.

So just be aware that it's two layers, one is asymmetric of the other, and then the details of the back is it's simply one layer.

So again, when I see these kind of things, I see them as so simple and we just can do it.

We can simply do it.

All right, so there's some other great base looks that are really positive, let's take a look at them.

I want to look at this, because we know how to do this.

So we can use our, again, this dart, if you'll notice it's coming from the lower side.

So I'm gonna use, and it's a knit, so I'm gonna use my base t-shirt pattern, that's the one I would use.

I'm gonna lengthen it.

Or I could even put the yoga skirt on the bottom of my t-shirt, I could do either one.

Because what we've done here is we've cut a seam, added seam allowance, and sewn it back together.

And we know how to do that.

There's a good old ruffle stuck right in the middle of it, and what this is actually called is a peplum.

And a peplum is a ruffle stuck in the middle of my dress.

And so all I have to do is measure the shorter edge, measure the longer edge, and I know exactly how much to put in at that point.

I can measure how wide it is.

And here's the beauty and the reason I'm suggesting you do this.

Is so many of us as sewers, we anticipate or we design something that we think will look terrific on us.

And just because it's just not what we do for a living or we just haven't had enough experience, by the time we actually make the garment and put it on, it just doesn't work how we thought it would work.

And that's not a bad thing, except it just takes up and absorbs a whole lot of our time.

So shopping is going to be a shortcut to seeing what we think we like, trying it on, seeing whether it looks good on us or not, and then doing a little bit of measuring, going back to those base pieces and really being able to apply what we've already got and putting in the pattern changes we need to get to where we want to be.

In this particular case, this is a long skinny drink of water, but I just wanted you to see that t-shirt makes a great t-shirt dress.

Belt it, we'll talk a little more about belts here in a minute.

But just make it long.

And a lot of times, when I'm doing it, I'll add a little more in the hips so that I have plenty of room.

A lot of times in the store those dresses, the sweater dresses that they have, they're just too tight, and even when you go to a larger size, they just don't fit everywhere.

What we know about dresses is dresses are the most difficult thing for women to buy in ready to wear.

And simply because the top, the bottom, everything's gotta be right, and we just don't come that way.

So it's really easy, and I will tell you, I think you feel a whole lot better about yourself when you sew and you can put the size on it that you want.

I've been a size two, even when I was nine months pregnant I was a size two, because I got to decide the size I wanted to be.

So I'm gonna show you a little addition here we're gonna make to the bottom of the sleeve, and this is just really fun.

And again, it's just kinda details that you see in the store that really are just simple.

Analyze them, kinda figure them out.

We learned last episode how to do pleats.

And I told you that if you measure the bottom and three times that, you'll get the pleating you want, and you want to measure the pleat all the way to the next one to keep that pleat nicely hung.

This is a box pleat, and there are different kind of pleats out there, and so it's done a little bit differently, but the way this is done is you measure the bottom of your sleeve, which is where this is, it's just cute at the bottom of the sleeve.

It's a three-quarter sleeve and then to have that hanging down gives a nice, cute little ruffle there at the bottom, it's not actually a ruffle, though, it's a box pleat.

So box pleat you'll actually measure the distance of the bottom of the sleeve and you'll double that.

So you only need two times that amount, and when you do a box pleat, you're gonna come up on top of the pleat.

So for instance, there's my doubled amount, I'm gonna push it all the way down, there's my doubled amount again, I'm gonna push it all the way down.

So those will just meet at the top.

Then what, all they did here is they took the middle and they brought it down and did a little stitch.

So when Vaun was here the other day and she was doing those great little knots, those would be perfect to do right there at the top to hold that down and you'd have a little bit of hand stitching, and if not, just do it by machine or just do it by hand.

But these are the kind of details that I love to have you get inspired by to come back and to put on your own garments and to just try different things.

The likelihood of us finding a pattern to do this, pretty slim.

So we don't need the pattern, we can really do this ourselves.

Okay.

We are going to talk shaping.

We've talked a lot about darts.

And I hear a lot, we're gonna borrow our mannequin friends here for a little bit.

I've heard it a lot, of women, over the time, who say to me, "I'm just not comfortable tucking that in.

"I just, you know, I don't like those darts," and da da da da.

I really want to give you a vision as to what darts are.

So, pillowcases are the best analogy I can make so that you'll understand the importance of darts.

I have purposely chosen two dress forms that are identical in size.

You can see the little size on the side of the neck, so they are identical.

I have chosen two pillowcases that probably belong side by side on a bed, but they're going to teach our little lesson that we have today, which is we don't look good in clothing that is a pillowcase.

Even if it's a decorated pillowcase.

It doesn't make it any better.

So, there's two philosophies of dress, and one of those is to completely just cover ourselves.

And as we age, and as we gain pounds, we have a tendency, we want to cover.

And I don't think it's specific to just women, I think it's men as well, we just want to cover.

We just want to put it over and cover it up.

And as long as we do that, we will look heavier than if we decide to shape.

Now I'm gonna do a quick analogy, but then I wanna do a little more in-depth one.

So this is the first analogy we're gonna make, and that is what you can see is that we're gonna call, we're not even gonna give 'em names, we'll keep it simpler than that.

This is A, and this is B.

A all of a sudden looks thinner when she puts the belt on, or when I put the belt on her, either way.

And I can hear you, but my stomach, I don't like my stomach, and my stomach, and my stomach and my stomach.

But if I just blouse this over, which is why that peplum was so popular, you can see that her tummy actually disappears, nobody can even see her tummy, you can't even see her tummy if you were to look down.

You couldn't even see her stomach.

But you still see how much smaller she looks than her best friend over here.

So we need to bring in at the waist.

The waist is generally, I know, I can hear you arguing already, it's the smallest part of our bodies.

It's smaller than our bust in most cases, and even if it's not, we're going to create the illusion that it is.

All right?

So, but I want a little more.

So remember in our terminology, we had length and length was measuring from shoulder to bust, bust to waist, waist to hip.

We had circumference, that was the distance around.

And then we had this creature that we called depth.

And depth is what's caused many of us to go quilt, because quilts are flat and they have no dimension to them and we can handle length and circumference, depth kind of throws us into a tailspin.

So I want to clarify it and make sure we understand it.

When I start in with depth, I am talking about the angles of the body.

And so I'm going to make sure we understand that the first part of depth that is important is the shoulder seam.

That angled shoulder seam is what changes the fabric length from the center to the side.

We do not have an ability, the fabric can't just change all on its own, it needs tools, it needs help.

And so the shoulder angle is a dart.

It's two angled lines that come together.

And when you just think about it logically, there's two types of lines in the universe.

There's parallel and converging.

So when we talk about parallel lines, that's circumference, that's length, everything either goes up or down or in or out.

But there's no control over those lines, those converging lines, that's our dart.

And so any time we have two lines that converge, that's what we call our dart.

So our shoulder seam is a dart, and if we have wrinkles or bags as you can see right in through there, our shoulder seam, if we pick it up will take care of it for us.

So we want to understand the importance of those shoulder seams.

The next thing, because you can see I can only pick that up so far, it's because the effect of that dart will only radiate out a certain amount of space.

So I'm gonna come in with my next tool.

And my next tool, it's called my bust dart.

And that will change by the distance from the center to the side, we don't even need to know what that is, but we can simply drape this and we can see that now without that extra fabric, I get a cleaner look all the way down.

I've taken away all of this extra stuff that's there, all of the wrinkles.

And any time we have wrinkles, I don't think we ever like wrinkles.

Not anywhere they are, we don't like wrinkles.

The goal is to get rid of wrinkles.

All right, both of these darts if you notice, they're horizontal.

And as they're horizontal, they affect the length so that this length becomes shorter than this length.

The side of the body is shorter than the center, and the difference between those two is what we use our darts for.

But now we have circumference that we want to change because we have our bust, our waist, our hip, and those differences are such that if we go in now with vertical darts, we can get the body to actually look smaller by taking in those vertical darts.

And what we know about vertical darts is they're actually our friend, even though so many of us just don't want them.

So I want you to change that perspective, to see, to kind of think it out, why don't I want them, why don't I like them, even though I know they make me look my very best?

Because it doesn't get any better.

Easy is to put a belt on, don't get me wrong, but when they're smooth and no extra fabric, that's our absolute best look.

Women say to me all the time I'm going to a wedding or my son's getting married or this person, whatever, what do I wear?

And every time I say the same answer.

Sheath dress.

One piece, one color, dart it at the waist, that's it.

It's your best look.

It makes you look taller, it makes you look thinner, it just doesn't get better.

Often on those sheath dresses, I've seen in the stores now, and I love the look, I've gotten a lot of flack from it over the years because people say how can you like that, it's so crude.

I think that's why I like it.

I like it when I've learned all the rules in fashion school, obviously I learned all the rules and we had to go by the rules, but I love it when I see a designer just kind of break out of those rules.

And yet it's legal, because they're following all the rules but there was one rule that wasn't written down and they kinda got around it.

And so when I see that for me, I just think that's just great fashion.

So one of the things lately that we've seen a lot of is those big clunky zippers all the way down center back.

And they're definitely a trend, they're not gonna be around forever, but because we sew we can put it in when we want to.

And I kinda want to show you how to do those, just real quick.

We won't go to the sewing machine, but we'll show you, I've just done a sample here that we can walk you through.

And I used different color fabric so that you could see what was going on.

So the gold was my actual fabric, I guess I put it the opposite, but anyway, I put one on top of the other and you just sew a rectangle.

And here you can see that I just sewed a rectangle.

You're gonna clip to the corners.

You're just gonna clip two diagonals right to the corner.

You're going to take and put the inside and so what you're doing is you're forming a little box.

And then what happens is the zipper is gonna come underneath, and that allows you to just sew that in place, but have a nice, clean opening.

On the backside of this, if you are doing a lined garment, you just connect the lining right to the backside of that, and the lining you will create a box in the exact same way.

So you've got the fabric box to the lining box, and then you attach those together, and it's just a great look and what I know is you can do it.

Okay, in our 700 series, we fitted the nine base pieces in our capsule wardrobe.

Throughout this series, we have learned nine pattern changes.

We have cut and added seam allowance, ruffles, shawl collars, princess seams, asymmetrical fronts, front facings, kimono sleeves, pleats, pant styling.

We have learned some exquisite embellishments as well.

So get creative, and don't be afraid to make mistakes.

Do some embroidery, by machine or by hand, and when you make a mistake, paint over it.

You'll be amazed at the stylish dimensions you can achieve.

Happy sewing from all of us at Fit 2 Stitch and thank you for watching.

(gentle piano music) - [Announcer] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Pendelton, Vogue Fabrics, Bennos Buttons, Kai Scissors, OC Sewing, Mike Gunther Industries, and Sew Steady.

To order a four-DVD set of Fit 2 Stitch series eight, please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.