Dress Shop 8
 How To Get the Best Pants Fit Possible

This is the Fitted Pants pattern, drafted using a customer's chart. Ideally, your pants pattern should have most of the features in this list. If your pattern deviates from these a little, the pattern may be fine. They are all different, as we well know. But, if you deviate a lot or if the fit is not right, then visit the symptom and fix list below.
 

  1. The inseam and outseam are comparably shaped.

  2. The crotch curve extension should be the exact length specified. The purple reference line at the base of the crotch curve should end just where the inseam and crotch curves meet.

  3. The inseam should touch each of the reference lines for thigh, calf, and ankle. Don't worry about the knee. The calf and thigh control this seam.

  4. The outseam should touch hip, thigh, calf, and ankle lines. Again, you can ignore the knee. The waist and abdomen reference lines should stop short of the outseam line by the width of the waist darts at that location. The outseam should be wider than the waist reference line by the width of the waist darts at the waist. The outseam should be wider than the ab reference line by the width of the waist darts at Ab Depth.

  5. The crotch curve should be neither too straight nor too curved.

  6. There should be no outseam bulge above the hip beyond what would be needed to accommodate the ab measurement plus dart intake.

Common problems and their fixes are described below.

 

 


Figure 1: Standard Fitted Pants Pattern
 
Problem: My crotch curve is J-Shaped.


This is common problem with three optional fixes. You can:

  1. Reduce the crotch length measurement.

  2. Increase the crotch extension.

  3. Reduce Inseam.

To choose which fix to you, you need to understand the cause of the problem. Why now? Because Dress Shop 8 now drafts to the specified crotch extension measurement. In the past, it may or may not have hit that value, depending on the crotch curve length. If the curve length was too long, then the extension target was missed.

 

 


Figure 2: J-Hook to the Crotch Curve
 
 

The most likely fix is the first one. Several of our test team could not believe that their pants would not be too tight in the crotch after making that particular adjustment. But, after trying the others, it was the favored choice.

The new pants draft can make a closer fit without binding. But, if you try that one and it feels uncomfortable, then you may need one of the alternate chart adjustments.
Figure 5: Decrease Crotch Length
 


The length of that crotch seam line is the Crotch Length measurement provided in your chart. That seam line must fit in a box that is crotch extension wide and crotch depth tall.

Crotch depth is your Floor To Waist measurement minus your Inseam measurement.

If you reduce inseam, you make crotch depth taller, making more room for the crotch curve to straighten out more. The crotch curve will lose its J-Hook, but a possible consequence is that your pants will now ride lower in the crotch.


Figure 3: Reduce Inseam
 

 

You could also increase the crotch extension to straighten out the crotch curve. But, that may make the crotch fit looser than you prefer, so this adjustment should be done only with sloper trials to judge the effect and fit.
Figure 4: Increase Crotch Extension
 

Problem: My crotch curve is not curved - the Ski-Slope curve


This is the exact reverse problem from the prior one and has all the same fixes, in reverse. You can:

  1. Increase Crotch Length (most likely)

  2. Increase Inseam measurement

  3. Reduce Crotch Extension

Problem: Bulge in the outseam between hip and waist


The causes of this one are complicated, based on the odd math used to draft the pants outseam. The problem lies with the line between points A (thigh width), B (hip width) and C (ab width plus dart intake). That line will flatten out if:

  1. Point A moves to the right. That happens if the grainline for the pants leg moves outward. With Dress Shop 8, the grainline adjustment has been made and most problems that look like this should go away. If you still have the problem, you can move the grainline further using the setting in the Complete Pants Customizer tool.

  2. Or, increase Mid-thigh measurement.

  3. Or, increase Floor To Hip. Moving the pivot point B upwards will also reduce the bulge.