The Fashion Sewing Group  It's about the clothes.

Boxy jacket? Straight legs? Short jacket? Wide legs?

Does the first woman weigh twenty pounds less than the second one? You'd think so wouldn't you?

Notice here what happens when wide-leg pants are combined with a boxy jacket. I frequenty see this on very large women and it's not that unusual for women who don't sew, because they're stuck with buying pants that fit "around" the waist and hips, but are generally cut for a taller figure.

You can see in the first figure that once the tummy, hip and thigh area are covered by the third layer, the pants can be narrowed considerably and a much slimmer look is the result. Pants even narrower than these shown are the style for Fall/Winter 2009-2010. We're back to a very skinny leg reminiscent of the eighties leggings.

In the third figure, if you shorten the third layer, you can improve the proportion of wide legs a bit, and in the fourth figure you see how the shorter jacket looks with a narrower leg.

Finally, even though the fourth and fifth figures both have the same width leg the fifth figure has a higher crotch line and looks better than the fourth, because it has been adjusted for the figure's height.

The first figure still looks best, doesn't it? (Would you ever wear versions 2, 3 or 4?) Well, 4 maybe, but.......

If you'd like a booklet that shows you how to change a pants pattern into flat front, drawstring, cargo, elastic waist, pleated, or shorts versions, there is a new booklet available called The Pants Conversion Booklet. It also shows how to make a contoured waistband, how to tweak your fit and other techniques within its 24 pages that will help you gain mastery of pants construction. The booklet is $10.00, or just $8.00 if you are a newsletter subscriber.