Why should you have a pants block? It helps you get a consistent outcome with pants every time and means you can sew quicker as you don’t have to make as many (if any) adjustments. There’s a few different ways you can make a pants block, you can use an existing pattern that you have adjusted and are happy with or a pattern that fits you perfectly straight out of the packet. You can trace off a pair of RTW pants that fit well or you can sew up a basic pattern and fit it until its ready to be used as a block. This block is mostly for the crotch curve and waist height. You may have to experiment with the leg shape on different pants but at least you will start with the top half fitting close to perfect. I’m going to show you how to make a pants block using an existing adjusted pattern, in my case I will use the Fehr trade leggings I fitted here.
1. Get out you pattern pieces and lay them out. It will help to mark the seam allowances on them.
2. Line up the pieces, including the waistband if it has a separate one, matching the seam lines up. This pattern is pretty simple so I get to skip this step. 3. Now we trace over the front and back pattern pieces, its up to you if you’d like your final pants block to include seam allowances or not, I’m including 1cm seam allowances on mine.
4. Make sure you include grainlines (this is very important for later!)
Because my pattern has a side panel I am halving the width of it and adding it onto the sides of my block.
5. Now we walk the seams, making sure that everything lines up
6. Do the same for the back.
So now we have the finished pants block, it has my ideal waist height at back and front, it has a crotch curve that fits perfectly at front and back and I know its wide enough to fit me.
A quick note on width – because this is a stretch pants block it relies a lot on the stretch of your fabric. I’m putting a note on mine showing how far the stretch is on the fabric I used, if I use a less stretchy fabric I will need to add a little to the inner and outer seam and rise and if I use a fabric with more stretch I may have to take from the inner and outer leg seams and the rise.
Next post: How to use a pants block.
Good post! Having a well fitting pants block is really helpful. It saves a lot of time and can be used to make almost any style of pants.
I made a block for just my rear crotch, but love this idea of the whole pattern piece. Nice start to the pant portion of the separates challenge.
Suzy, your back crotch curve has a curve in it where you added length. I also do this addition so I have some experience with that little “bump”. I would take my French curve and correct that bump. Then go to the side seam and add what ever got shaved off on the back only at the same latitude!. I made several pairs where that bump showed up in the finished product!
thanks a lot …. I’ll try this and i am already waiting for next article because I always have problems with the legs who are too large !
Many, many thanks Susy