Pants Fitting Tips & Tricks for the Jenny Overalls & Trousers

Pants fitting can cause a lot of anxiety, so this post is here to mitigate any stess you may have about fitting our Jenny Overalls & Trousers. Since the cut is so generous through the leg, you really only need to worry about getting things right in the rise and crotch area, and in today's post, I'll be walking you through crotch fitting, grading between sizes and a few other changes you can make to tweak the fit to your liking.

My number one piece of advice is to make a quick muslin and to confirm your measurements before cutting out your size. This pattern is based off a new block, so adjustments you've made to past patterns of ours may be different here. Making a muslin will help you figure out if you need to make any adjustments to the rise, crotch or width or length of leg, in addition to whether or not you would like to use a single or double hip zipper. Basically, you want to quickly test the bottom half of the pattern with the waistband designed for one zipper. Cut out the legs without any of the pockets, and either leave the zipper off and simply pin closed, or baste in a zipper along the center of the side seam to test whether you can easily get them on and off. If they feel a bit tight getting on, for your final pair you should switch to the other waistband and prepare to sew zippers at each hip.

I also suggest downloading our pants fitting ebook if you need more help. We wrote that for our Sasha trousers but the principles are the same for any pant pattern, and I am not going to exhaustively cover all fitting issues here since I've done it in that post.

FITTING THE RISE

I would say the rise of this pattern is generous. In development and testing, we decided it was important that the crotch not be too restricting; you want to be able to wear these all day without feeling anything digging into you, or the need to constantly be pulling things down. Ideally, the crotch seam will sit a little below your pelvis, giving you enough room to move, walk and sit down in comfort.

If you are short or have a shorter torso, you may find the overall rise too long. If it feels too loose or baggy in the crotch, you'll want to cut the front and back legs along the indicated line and overlap them the desired amount. Making a muslin is very helpful here because you can experiment with pinching and pinning out the fabric you want to remove all the way around before adjusting your pattern piece.

The opposite is true if the overall rise feels too short - you will cut and spread your pieces along the indicated line and fill in with a scrap of paper to lengthen the rise.

ADJUSTING CROTCH FIT

You may find that the overall rise works for you, but the front crotch is too long, which will be indicated by frown lines at the bottom of the crotch pointing towards your leg (more details on that in our pants fitting ebook). In that case, you will want to shorten the front rise only, either along the top waistband seam, or along the inseam as shown below (please note you will likely only need to adjust the pants in one place).

MAKING LEGS LESS WIDE

Jenny has a lovely wide leg, but if you'd like to take them in a bit for something a little more straight, it's an easy mod. You'll want to try and take an even amount from front and back; if you are removing 1/2" from the front side seam, that much should come off the back leg as well (this helps retain the balance of the leg). Same goes for inseam. The easiest way to determine how much to remove can be done at the muslin stage, with pins or by basting experimental new seams until you get to something you like. Then those adjustments will be transferred to your pattern pieces.

GRADING BETWEEN SIZES

It's important to grade between sizes for this pattern. The pants should have about 1" of ease in the waistband and 2" of ease through the hips to fit as they were designed. Note that if you have to grade between 3 sizes or more, you may find the hip seam too curvy to install the zipper. If that's the case, I suggest moving the zipper to center back or replacing the zipper with hip buttons, which I'll be explaining how to do in an upcoming post.

In the below example, I am grading in between two sizes, 10 at the waist and 12 at the hip. First, draw a line from the side seam of the size 10, gradually curving it till it meets the size 12 around the hip notch. For the front pocket, trace the size 10 opening and then extend it till it touches your new hip line. You will also have to modify the pocket pieces and facings to reflect this new pocket shape.

And that's it for todays fitting post! Let me know if you have any questions below.