Thursday, January 17, 2013

Getting rid of the inner thigh pocket on RTW pants - How to

Now I'm sure a lot of people don't have this problem but there must be others out there that do (unless I really am unique like Mum says). This happens a fair bit to me - enough that I had to come up with a solution. Now, I'm positive that there are better and more 'proper' ways to do this, so take it with a grain of salt - this is what I came up with to fix my particular problem for this type of pants and the way I think they should fit me.

You're trying on a pair of pants with stretch that are meant to be fitting, everything looks good until you spy the inner thigh (on one or both legs) - there's a baggy bit that sticks out, making it look like I don't know what but not right - what the heck? If that makes no sense to you, here's a (poor) example:

See that bump on the inner thigh of the right leg? It was difficult to get a good pic but hopefully, you'll get a better understanding.
 Admittedly, this isn't a really bad example, but these pants were in the mending pile for that very reason, so they're what I had to work with.

My hack solution? Pinch out that excess (you can measure and mark - I usually just eyeball it), marking the beginning and end of it with pins. Turn your pants inside out and mark a new stitching line that gradually blends with the original stitching line.

The new stitching line - it looks longer than necessary here but the darkness of the first photo didn't show all of the excess.

 Even though in the top photo it looked as though only one was weird, both had it going on, it's just that one was worse than the other, which is why one of the new stitching lines is actually a bit deeper than the other. In this case, these pants were a bit higher (and poofier) than I wanted at the front and back as well, so I took some out of the crotch.

The new seamline isn't always as graduated as this one either, I remember one pair in particular where the top near the crotch was like a big horseshoe - looked strange off but perfect on - there was a lot of excess at the top of the inner leg in those particular pants for some reason, must be something to do with the way the shape sits on your shape?

You can see I've had a couple of goes at taking out the excess in these - I'm usually conservative to start with (until my patience runs out).

Weird inner thigh pockets gone.

 Reminder: This is most certainly not the official or proper way to do this, it's just the easiest and quickest way I've come up with.

Could it be that I'm really the only person this happens to?


  1. I haven't noticed this but I would have fixed this in the same way. I don't fix things the 'proper' way either. You've definitely used a fix that works and that's all that matters in my books.

  2. I say if it works and it's easy then it might be right LOL. The technically correct way is probably a lot more involve but hey who needs to be technically correct... the main this is you get the result you want and it's easy for you to do it. These pants sure do look good on you now :) By the way thanks for dropping by my blog and leaving a comment as now I've had the chance to meet another fellow aussie sewer from my own home state. I'm from the Gold Coast and we moved over to WA for work but still have our home back there... looking forward to coming back again one day too :)

  3. Yes, sometimes, if I think I'll get too bogged down trying to discover the 'right' way, it just keeps going back to the mending box and never gets done. I've learnt the hard way that it's often a choice between a hack job and no job.