Jul 21, 2015

Pants - Curving the Center Front Seam for the Protruding Tummy

As we age, many women develop a fuller tummy/stomach pouch.  Sometimes this is primarily at CF and immediately underneath the waist.  For other women, this rounding/fullness is not only under the waist, but it also spreads horizontally.

When you have this little belly/pouch, you will often experience fullness in the CF seam right underneath the pouch.

However, sometimes it fits just fine under the pouch, but you'll see drag lines/wrinkles pointing up toward the center of the tummy fullness.  If this occurs, then consider this CF crotch seam refinement.

Rather than maintaining CF as a 'straight line', it can be slightly curved right where the tummy fullness is located.







The result is that:
1.  You wouldn't be able to put in a zipper fly at CF - since you need a straight seam for this application.  But a zipper front might not suit your body shape anyway because of the tummy pouch.

2.  With a curved CF seam, you wouldn't want to sew with a stripe or checked fabric, as you'd end up with a 'chevron' effect at CF which likely wouldn't be that flattering.  Choose solid colors.

This added curvature doesn't need to be a lot to make a substantial difference.  So even though this refinement might sound a little strange, it really does work.

Here's a photo of a happy seamstress, as these are the best fitting pants she's ever worn.  In this photo, her blouse is tucked in to show the excellent pattern fit, but typically she only ever wears her blouses out over top of her pants.  This refinement really does work well!




Happy Fitting & Sewing!

Glenda...The Good Stitch

4 comments:

  1. Thank you Glenda - I have often wondered about this. Nothing more uncomfortable than garments that are too tight around the middle.

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  2. A simple fix to a very common issue. Thank you!

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  3. Yes, it is a very common issue and so few think about just curving the seam to match their contours. Of course it means that you won't be inserting a CF zipper, but, depending on how big the tummy is, there's a good chance you wouldn't want a CF zip anyway.

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  4. por favor lo pudieran traducir al español gracias

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