Pants for the sleepy sewist with a big butt

[alias_sqbr]

So! I spend a lot of time lying down/sleeping in bed, and it gets depressing just wearing the few pants I can find in shops which comfortably fit my short, fat, pear-shaped body, since they generally scream HELLO I AM WOMEN'S PAJAMAS.

On the other hand, I am not very good at sewing! Even asides from my limited energy, straight lines and I tend to never be close friends.

BUT I HAVE MADE PANTS REGARDLESS. They're not the most flattering pants I've ever owned, but they're very comfortable, not super ugly, and in a fabric which only says "I am pajamas" in a small voice. In case other people might find it useful, I'll try and write up what I remember of my process.

Here's me in the pants:


I'm 161cm/5'3" tall, and a size 22 in Australian women's clothing, which I think is around a size 20 in American women's sizes. I used this polycotton printed jersey which is good except for how it had a GREAT BIG LINE down the middle saying "black and white", wtf. Luckily I had bought extra fabric and could cut around it.

They're pretty loose, especially around the butt, which is the result of every earlier iteration looking nice when I stood up but being too tight in the butt and/or knees once I bent my legs. In these ones I can comfortably sit cross legged and not feeling notable strain in the fabric. I'm not sure how they'll fit in a non-stretch fabric. Also the seams are a wobbly disaster but that's just how my sewing always goes and should not be held against the pattern.

I started with Paco pants from freesewing. I made the version with no pockets and no ankle cuffs (Pockets are great in principle but I'm lazy ;P). This site adapts patterns to fit your dimensions, which is incredibly useful. Unfortunately the combo of the fit being deliberately tight, me screwing up some things, and my short pear-shaped dimensions meant I could barely fit into the first pants I made with the pattern.

Luckily the people on the Free Sewing discord were super friendly and gave me some very helpful tips.

The two things I screwed up were printing the pattern slightly too small without double checking the dimensions, and stretching the fabric while cutting. Now before I cut stretch fabric I put heavy books on the pattern and then carefully pin everything in pace without letting the fabric stretch.

The next set were made properly, a little bigger in all dimensions, and had more ease. These fit a lot better, but still didn't really like me lying in bed with my legs bent at the knees and hips, which is my position a lot of the time. Also the fabric bunched at the front and was tight over the butt.

I poked through these pants adjustments and used the ones for a swayback and wider legs. This meant extending the back seam up and the front seam down, and widening both leg pieces. Then I drew new lines at the top of each leg piece between the new end points. I adjusted the waistband length to be the new sum of the lengths of the top lines of each leg piece.

Adjustments are in blue:


I didn't bother putting it in the image, but I adjusted the bottom cuff seam allowances to go straight down instead of tapering inwards, which made the bottom hems work better.

I also invested in some better quality thread and some stretch fabric needles, which cut down on the thread bunching so much and overall made sewing easier.

And that all lead to the pants above, which worked great! So now I can make more! After a long, long nap. I'll probably make the next pair slightly less loose, I was being cautious this time since it was my first attempt with the new pattern.

Comments

[hokuton_punch]

Oooooh, they're very nice-looking! ♥

[alias_sqbr]

Thank you!