Philippa pants – pants fitting again

So, as you might know I tried to fit pants back in 2018 (posts are on this blog), driving my self nuts in the process. I bought 5-6 fitting books, watched several hours of tutorials online, made a cling wrap sloper and even ended up paying a professional tailor to help me make a pattern. All in vain; all pairs had the same issue: Criss crossing lines on my back thighs. I have come the conclusion that this is due to my high Kermit-factor (skinny little legs, wide behind) together with my tilted hip and spanning several sizes from thigh to hip to waist. Also, one hip sits a few inches higher than the other, and I lock my knees while standing. Lately I have started searching for fitting tips online again; I have made the Dawn jeans and the Persephone pants with great succes, so now I felt like trying to make my unicorn pants: Well fitting, no stretch slim pants! Pants with wider legs are much easier to fit.

I chose the Philippa pants, as I had great succes with Persephone, and I found several ladies online that achieved a great fit with them, having some of the same issues as I do. My measurements put me in size 8 waist, size 12-14 hip, 8 thigh, 10 knee and 8 calf. I ended up using size 14 as a starting point, as I could see several people mention that they are a bit on the tight side.

As you can see from the picture, I still have the lines on my back thighs, and this is after 7 (seven!) muslins. Where I have tried everything; changing the angle of the leg by pinching 1″ from the inner thigh at top. Scoooooping away from back crotch. Tilting the hip part one way, tilting it the other. Taking wedge out from outer leg. Doing a fish eye dart. Often the adjustments looked great on the sloper, but when I transferred it to the pattern and sewed it up again: Not much changed. I get a consistently (bad) fit, no matter what I do. Or rather: The back thigh lines are un affected no matter what I do. One very surprising thing was that whenever I tried to curve the side seams, it was instantly criss-cross galore on the back thighs! So even though I have a curve at the hip to the knee, the pants fit best when cut straight! So strange.

Just see here: First photo, cut the sloper adding a 2 cm fish eye dart on the left leg, Wow so great fit! Second photo: Fish eye dart transferred to pattern, new sloper. Gah. On top of this, often the advise goes totally contraire to each other; to pinch from outseam or from inseam for instance.

Then someone gave me a very good piece of advice: Let it go, make the pants you want, nobody but other sewist will notice this. And this prove to be true. I showed one of my muslins to a (non-sewing) friend, telling her I was working on pants. She had some great insights regarding waist hight, but no comments to the lines. I then told her that the lines where my main issue, and she went quiet, and then said that she hadn’t even noticed them, and even now when I pointed them out, she didn’t think they were a problem at all! I am SO surprised, all I see are these lines. This makes me think that I am probably a bit obsessed and should just let it go. So, right now I am wearing these pants.

As you can see, I do need the fabric to move around, so I cannot take them in anymore.

Below: Black is Philippa straight size 14, grey is with all my changes. Seriously SEVEN muslins, changing angle etc etc, and the pattern pieces end up almost the same! It is crazy; whenever I do a change, like a fish eye dart in the back thigh, I lay the new pattern piece on the old; a fish eye dart essentially shaves a little bit on the inner thigh from knee and up. Thats it, just a complicated way to do it!

The changes I ended up with was scooping quite a bit in the butt and also lowering the crotch in the back – maybe I need a little bit lowering in the front too? The angling of the front made a huge different in comfort, before they dug into my belly when I sat down. I could have made these changes in a day, in stead of spending two weeks sewing slopers – but, again, I did learn something: To just let it go. And enjoy my sewing. Now I will take a break from fitting pants.

So for now: Acceptance. I have also been obsessed with other peoples crotches and butt when out, and these are no worse than store bought pant. Am I sewing to achieve a poor fit? No, of course not – but now I can make my ill fitting pants my self, in any fabric I choose 😉 AND long enough legs!

(The top is LB pullover, I LOVE that top, I must make it in everything <3 )