Sunday Pants Trials, Part 2

As mentioned earlier, I've been fooling around with that WOF pants pattern. I finished the X adjustment as per Minott, which is to cut the pattern at the knee and slide it over toward the inseam (front and back). That part was easy and went fairly quickly. I marked the knee line on my pattern by first marking the crotch line and then folding the pattern from hem line to crotch line, using the resulting middle fold as the knee line. Standard stuff, right?

Then I cut out my pattern in muslin and methodically marked all the vertical and horizontal lines (grain, crotch, knee) and sewed it together. My X wrinkles were better, but still not completely gone. I stared in the mirror while pulling, pushing, … you know the drill. ;-) And then I noticed that the line I marked for my knee was a good 3+ inches below my actual knee. While still wearing the muslin I sorta tucked it up at the knee and it looked like it improved things at that back X area. So, I took off the muslin pants and machine basted a 4" tuck between crotch and knee so that the knee line actually hit ON my knee.

I then tried the pants on again and I swear that back leg/crotch is now nearly perfect.

Could it really be that simple? Could the lower part of those X wrinkles have been fooling me all along, making me think they were something else instead of simply too much length in that area of the pattern?

I never thought I had short legs, and I don't as far as RTW pants. But I suppose mine *are* shorter than the 8-foot model legs the patterns are drafted for. And maybe they're shorter between crotch and knee than "normal." I know I do have extended calves, which has got to play a part in this. But maybe I just have short legs overall and am in denial. I have no idea.

So, hmmm. I'm going to think on this for a while. And maybe make another muslin while playoff game #2 is on to test this again.

Sheesh. The more you learn about this stuff, the more you realize you don't know.