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Please HELP! Trouser Fitting Knowledge Required

Please HELP! Trouser Fitting Knowledge Required

So I kind of ear-marked the second half of 2015 for nailing trouser making and fitting. I cant help but notice that June is on its way out, so its time to get schooled. The thing is, I dont just want to make a couple of passable/wearable pairs for myself; ideally Id like to go deep so I can really understand them to help other people with fit and figure issues that may be different to my own. Sewing bloggers of the world, PUH-LEASE can you direct me towards some knowledge?! I want to know everything, but in the meantime these are my specific areas of confusion:


The Long and Short of it 

When making for myself, Ive realised that theres one pattern alterations I will definitely need to make. My main fit issue seems to be my shortwaisted-ness (my natural waist line is a bit higher up than average). To accommodate that I know I need to slash and spread the front and back trouser pattern pieces like this, but how much to spread? Presumably Id need to know my rise measurement, however an evening (well, hour or so, I dont get much time to myself these days!) spent on Google and YouTube failed to unearth an accurate method to do so. Any ideas?

All Rise

Also, how do you know what rise shape you need? There seems to be such a variety of rise curves, in sewing patterns, particularly the back rise, surely they wont all fit your specific figure straight out the packet? Ive read a couple of times on blogs and Instagram about sewers scooping out more from the rise and things like that. WHY are they doing that?! How do they how much to scoop out? Plus, Ive seen some jeans patterns that have a back rise that is not very curved at all, more a diagonal line than a classic J shape. Whats that all about? Is it related to how wide the legs are? Are the rise shapes of skinny-legged jeans and trousers different to the rise shapes of wide-legged trousers? Agh! My mind is close to explosion.


Resourcefulness 

That Coletterie Pant Fitting Cheat Sheet and enclosed links are a nice opener, but they dont really have the depth of explanation or detailed illustrations that Im looking for. The cheat sheet post does recommend three books for further reading: Fitting and Pattern Alteration, Pants for Real People and Perfect Fit: The Classic Guide to Altering Patterns. Do you own any of these, or any other fit/pattern alteration book, and could you recommend it for trousers? Or have you found a particularly useful blog post, YouTube clip or something else that you think could start shedding some light on the baffling world of making well fitting trousers? Enormo-thanks in advance.

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