Subversive Femme's Tutorial on Removing Pants Darts

Again, in the chance of a disappearing link, here is a quick tutorial from Subversive Femme. This was not written by me, nor photographed by me. Just very useful.

1. To remove the darts, trace around your pattern piece (we never cut the original, right?)


2. Redraw the dart lines down to the side edge of the pattern piece, somewhere near the knee area. Keep the same start points on the waist edge.


3. Fold the new dart closed


4. Retrace your new pattern piece, and re-draw the waist so it's even (you can see the faint blue line of where the previous folded piece was).

Update on Pants

So yet again, I hate pants with a fiery, burning passion. Here is the catalogue of sins for this current pair of pants.


What the hell is going on with that hem? One pant leg is all borked and crooked, but the other pant leg hangs beautifully. I have yet to make a pair of pants that DOESN'T do this.

I have the zipper facing the wrong direction. This was a problem that started with cutting and meant I had to install the zipper twice, etc. etc.

I installed the zipper in the wrong spot, adding 3" to my front waist measurement. This meant I had to scramble to find a way to remove those inches.

I intended to have extra seam allowance in the normal place along the back for adjustment purposes. Somehow that got scrambled during the chalking out of the pattern and I had extra seam allowance along the side seams. Where the pocket lives. Thus making it useless.

The pockets were a royal pain in the ass, but overall got in there. I need to figure out exactly how to make it so that the side seams are ONE seam, and not 3 short ones navigating the pocket, but that's minor.

The back was completely uneven. The dart, the pocket, and the crease were about an inch closer to the center on one side of the back. I adjusted the back seam on one side in an endeavor to remove the aforementioned 3" and made the back hang a little more evenly.

The pants are baggy and ugly as hell -- I think I'll trim down the sides for the next pair of pants. Either that or I borked my seam allowance, which is also entirely possible.

Misjudged the seam allowance for my flat fell seams, so used the French seams that are sewn down to one side to replicate the flat fell, but perhaps this threw off my seam allowance?

The waistband attachment is an ugly kludge, but whatever. A good pressing, that I am too frustrated to do at this moment, could work that out.

I forgot to include a place on the waistband for the zipper protection flap. Whoops. Look who doesn't care. I'll solve this next time by just cutting the waistband with a few extra inches to spare.

Things that came out reasonably well: the overarching zipper installation isn't terrible. It's one of my better crotches. The back patch pockets turned out well, and my topstitching is pretty. The side pockets aren't bad -- a little blurphly because of the side seam, but the pocket installation went well. The creases are working out well. And it actually fits like it's supposed to, which is a plus.

Sewing Pants

AKA my least favorite thing to do in the entire world. So I'm working on a wearable muslin of the final pants pattern for my partner, and if something can go wrong, it is going wrong. Firstly, I apparently added the extra 'flap' fabric to the wrong half. No bigs. It just meant that I installed a zipper wrong last night. I threw it on the floor and went to bed.

This morning, I figured I'd get in there with snips and remove the wrong zipper. Did so, and that was when I realized that I had cut the fabric out wrong. Not worried, I don't really care which side the zipper flap is on.

Nearly sewed the wrong side of the zipper to a pant piece, but caught it in time. I had the image in my head from when I had sewn it the opposite direction and nearly repeated the stitching.

Finished the zipper and just going to topstitch the flap when I realize somewhere in all of the shenanigans, one side is higher than the other. Thanks.

Topstitching is crooked. Very few fucks were given. Bar tacks look clean.

I apparently am incapable of putting the zipper where it needs to go, and wound up adding THREE INCHES of room due to faulty zipper application. I'm not taking the zipper back out. Took one inch or so out with the darts and will take the rest out at the side seams.

I'm all happy with the front pieces, finally, when I realize what's next. Back pockets. ...Y'know, I have zero problems with patch pockets on these pants. I'm gonna cheat and do patch pockets. Bam. Will be done easily.