Conspiracy theory

My friend Robin over at a sewing on the side has been making some Style Arc pants lately and having the same extreme success we all have had with those patterns.


I made three pairs of Linda pants in ponte for my trip away. They were perfect. Super comfortable, with a waistband suitable for sitting for long periods of time in restaurants and on airplanes, but with a leg that looked like real tailored pants.


Most of all the best thing about these pants are the fit. Right out of the envelope with these minor, made-for-me adjustments:


1. My waist is 1.5" bigger than the hip measurement of the size I bought. This is no surprise to me. I added 3/4" to the front seam tapering down to normal by the crotch.


2. See belly above and also the ample rear end. I added 1" to the waistline at top at CF and CB and then tapered back to usual by the side seams.


The result is a perfect, perfect fit.


I have made the exact same alterations to the Kerry Cargo pants which I made once in a poplin as pants, and once cut shorter as shorts.


Yes, family members no need to tell me the photos on my blog suck, but you folks are out of town and Rascal's paw shakes when he holds the camera and the shots are too blurry to use. So it's the old back-of-the-door shots:

Yes too I know these are just your old elastic waist units, however the cut is so good that once on and the elastic expanded to Babs size they look smooth and excellent. You have to trust me on this until I can get a photographer around here.


Now get ready for the rave.


I have been trying to make pants that fit since 1972 (yes I know you weren't born yet, but pants fitting was no easier then than now). 


I have made gingham muslins, tried 47 different perfect fit patterns (some documented on this blog). I have taken classes, taught classes,  pinched, tweeked, taken in and let out.


I have pivoted and slid. I have cloned and drafted. I have bought software, tracing paper, broken countless mechanical pencils, and used more Scotch tape than Christmas.


I have spent enough money on this to have paid for medical school. That is if medical schools accepted people who stopped taking math in Grade Nine (thank you thank old school system of the province of Quebec which had a very francophone view of the importance of arts and languages).


Despite all of this I have still, no matter how much I have tried to convince myself that it was only an issue of not standing right in my clothes, had:


1. A sort of space at the front that would have accommodated a fanny pouch, that is if I wanted to wear one under my pants as sort of a security measure to thwart pick pockets on my travels.
2. A rear end that pulled down when I sat, exposing my vast collection of old lady underwear.
3. Diagonal wrinkles on the inside of my legs that only moved to new places when I tried to get rid of them.


I am not the only one this has happened to.


What if - this is where the conspiracy theory comes in - the problem was pants patterns for sewers that were drafted not to fit nearly anybody, and not me? 


Or you?


What if a decent pants draft reduces pant fitting problems to human-sized tasks?


What if there was one or two simple tweaks you could do to every pants pattern that a particular organization produced and every one of those pants patterns fit?


Style Arc has made me suspect this might be true.


To my relief another Style Arc order arrived just in the nick of time yesterday, with the Peta pants Robin made, and with the Sasha blouse too.


I am attaching the pattern shot of the Sasha to show you why I am just as optimistic about this pattern.  


Note the shaping of the collar stand and collar, compared to the ruler straight units we usually see, the small front armhole versus the back and the high sleeve cap.


Interesting.