Hi there,
I’ve been futzing about with pant fitting for a while, and I’ve ironed out (no pun intended) most of my crotch length issues, with the exception of one:
I seem to have a fairly prominent pelvic bone in front, which means that there is no nice gentle slope from the front of the pants into the inseam. It’s more L-shaped. I think this is causing my pants to get horizontal wrinkles on the upper thighs. I also have quite full inner thighs as well, but I’m not sure how I should adjust my patterns to accommodate both of my fitting quirks.
Any suggestions?
Replies
As a rule, I've been taught that horizontal wrinkles = too much fabric and vertifical wrinkles = not enough.
Maybe you could measure your inseam and compare it to the pattern or maybe the crotch length is too long?
Sorry about that but you got it backwards. Horizontal wrinkles = not enough fabric and vertical wrinkles = too much fabric. Horizontal wrinkles form when the fabric is stressed by pulling and being stretched to fit. Vertical wrinkles form when there isn't enough body to fill out the fabric. Take a look at clothing ads and you can see this. Happy sewing. Sue
I think I'm agreeing with SticherDMcG in this case. If it's a crotch seam and it's too long, I think the fabric will wrinkle horizontally because the seam will not allow it to hang down smoothly. If you tie a string around your waist and pull up the waistline, you should be able to see the horizontallies disappear and at the same time, you can figure how long the crotch seam should be. rjf
I don't see my attachment. Hopefully it will show when I post or I will redo. It is from Nancy Zieman's Fitting Finesse. Depends on whether the wrinkles are pulls or folds. If pulls, not enough fabric -- widthwise. If folds, too much fabric -- lengthwise. I was thinking pulls. (Hopefully, I won't get in trouble for this. I guess I really am supposed to get permission to post an excerpt.) Happy sewing. Sue
Ok, hopefully the third time is the charm on this. The second attempt totally disappeared. Hopefully Nancy Zieman will forgive me for posting an excerpt without permission. Happy sewing. Sue
Yeah! After I sent off the last message, those two different kinds of wrinkles came to mind. Never really thought about the difference before but the pictures made it very clear. rjf
I was thinking pulls versus folds mainly due to the area where the problem is. Fuller thighs need more width to accomodate them. Bicyclists especially have extremely well developed thigh muscles and it isn't unusual for the thigh to be larger then the hip. Having enough width in the hip generally mean for a lot of us that there is sufficient room for the thigh but this isn't always the case. If you get vertical wrinkles in a sleeve for instance it is generally because there is too much width for the wearer. If there is not enough fabric in the sleeve you will get horizontal pulls or wrinkles. I don't know why but it is usually very easy to look at an outfit on someone else and figure out what is wrong with the fit but difficult to do the same for yourself. Happy sewing. Sue
This post is archived.