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Posted by tracine on June 26, 2006, 4:54 pm
Hi Everyone:
Can anyone tell me if it is possible to alter a pair of my dress slacks so
that they are not so wide. These are nice slacks and fit nicely at the
waist but I find that once you hit the side pockets they are a little too
wide right down the leg. Thanks if anyone can help.
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Posted by cea on June 26, 2006, 7:24 pm
tracine wrote:
> Hi Everyone:
>
> Can anyone tell me if it is possible to alter a pair of my dress slacks so
> that they are not so wide. These are nice slacks and fit nicely at the
> waist but I find that once you hit the side pockets they are a little too
> wide right down the leg. Thanks if anyone can help.
---
I'm working on a stack of slacks now. Some need narrowing, some are
too skinny for me, and I don't wear stovepipe leg pants, so I will
also describe the process for widening the legs, too.
Narrowing pants legs:
Decide what finished leg width you like. Turn pants inside-out,
measure bottom of leg. divide the width you need to remove by 4 (4
seams, remember?); that is the amount you will mark to remove. Start at
the knee, or just below the inset pocket bottom, where the pants start
to widen.
Using tailor's chalk, draw a line (just like making a dart--) skinny
end of dart starts in knee area,(or above), widening to your desired
finished hem measurement at the hem edge. You will have opened the hem
up to give enough room to work, and will sew the new seam through the
open hem, re-hemming when done.
Widening the legs.
Yes, it can be done. Remember the hippie flares of the '60's? Well,
you don't have to go that wide. You can make the alteration much more
subtle, if you so desire, or go big, and add a contrasting fabric.
I lucked into a stack of nice new jeans for $1.00 each. Stovepipe
legs. Fabric stores don't have anything that even comes close to the
jean colors Tripping down to the corner thrift shop, I found a pair of
jeans which almost exactly match one pair, both in color and weight. I
want the altered jeans to hang properly, so matching the weight is
essential. Since it's an inseam, I can cheat a bit on exact
color-matching/ weave differences; coming close will work well.If I
can't find a thrift shop pair to match another color jean, I'll try to
dye a portion of the T.S. jeans to match one pair of nice jeans.
Nothing ventured, nothing stained.
I tried the jeans on, marked the knee area, then, doffing them, split
the inseam up to my mark. I've cut an insert from the thrift shop pair,
so that I will have a finished width of 16" (still fairly narrow, but
comfortable for me) at the hem, plus seam allowances. I'll serge the
seams, then re-hem.
Leg width of the insert as it goes up the leg is determined by the
width of the insert, as the insert must taper into an upside-down V in
the knee area. The process is just basically inserting a gusset, then
re-hemming leg ends.
The advantage of using thrift store jeans is that I now have a yard
( in length only---not in fabric width--) of on-grain jeans fabric. The
round-the-leg stretch will be the same as the pair of jeans. Lycra
blend jean fabric runs about $14.00 a yard, if you can find it.
The great thing about a matching--or near-matching insert is that
you wind up with a designer look, not like some hippie patch job. Seams
become a design feature. Cost of my new, altered jeans is now up to
less that $4.00 U.S. per pair. These jeans are a lycra blend, and the
comfort is unbelievable. I can now bend my ever-swollen knees as I sew.
HTH. Any more questions? The alterations doctor in in the house.
Cea
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