Simplicity 1696 Revisited



Before and After - Simplicity 1696

I first made and blogged about this pattern five months ago.  I was happy enough with them although they didn't look like the pattern pic.  I wanted a more fitted pant, closer to a jean, which is what I thought I would get with this pattern.  See the extra folds of fabric under the butt in the left view above?  I wasn't thrilled with that.  I've only worn them once, and since every time I've put them on I felt they looked worse.  I had taken apart the side seams a month or so ago to remove the piping and try taking them in but because of the front pockets I wouldn't be able to do this.  So I sewed them back up and left them to languish in my closet.

I modeled them for my mom the other day and she commented on how there was way too much fabric in the back.  So I decided to remake them from scratch to see if they could be something I would wear.  One of the first things I discovered when revisiting the pattern was that I had lost 1 1/2" in my hips in the five months since making these!  No wonder they were too baggy!  The second thing I noticed is that there is a whole section on fitting the pants in the instructions that didn't seem familiar to me at all, so I am assuming I bypassed them the first time around.  Did I even read the instructions?

I traced out the pattern going down one size and changed from the regular fit to the slim fit, seeing as I have a flat butt and not a lot of difference between my waist and my hips.  I sewed them up and took the pics shown below and at the bottom of the page.  I decided I needed to get rid of the wrinkles under my butt, so I took a scoop out of the bottom of the seat seam as recommended in the pattern.  I did this twice, but it is hard to determine how much of an impact alterations are having when your fabric has as much stretch as this fabric does.

Adj 1
Adj 2










I felt the legs were too snug at this point, not tight but they did grab onto my legs when I would sit and then stand.  There are 1" side seams so I moved that over 3/8" to go to a standard 5/8" side seam.  
Left: unchanged; Middle: Adj 1; Right: Adj 2

The final fit
Finally when I reattached the waistband I lowered it 1 3/4".  This had a big impact on changing the look of the pant from the old style dress pant to a more modern jean style pant.  This is obvious in the comparison pic at the top of the page.


All in all I am much happier with these pants.  I am wearing them now and they are comfortable.  If I make them again I will probably leave out the pockets and just topstitch them as faux pockets.  That would eliminate any gaping and I don't really use front pockets anyway.

Before adjustments
Before adjustments

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