Activewear: How to use a stretch pants block

In my last article I showed how to make a pants block from a TNT pattern. Now we get to the fun part, how to use it!

1. Trace and cut out the pants pattern you want to make.

2. Now put the pants block underneath the new pattern front piece, lining up the crotch points.

3. Check the grainlines on both pattern pieces are parallel.

4. Now trace your block onto the pattern.

4. If you were making pants with a separate waistband, you would overlap it, matching the seam lines, so the finished height would be the same. However, the pants I’m making here have a high yoga style waistband, so I’m fine with it sitting higher than my pants block.

5. Do the same with your back pieces, again making sure the grainlines are parallel.

6. Walk your seamlines, making sure everything matches up, and adjust the hem if necessary.

7. You’re going to use the new red lines (from the block), and blend to the black lines where needed (in this example, the side seam of the leg needs to blend from my block which is jutting out a bit to the original black line of the side).

You can see that while the pants would have fit my legs, with all the excess around my waist and front I would have had big drag lines – and they would have been uncomfortable to wear, to say the least!

Now you have an adjusted pattern go ahead and make your pants.

This is the pants (Kwiksew 3988) made up. I did have to take 1cm from the inner seam and scoop out the front crotch 0.5cm, but overall they were not a bad fit considering I made no muslin and just did flat pattern adjustments.

A pants block isn’t a magic bullet. You may still need to tinker with the fit and adjust, but I can honestly say it has helped me so much. It takes a lot of the stress out of fitting pants because you are starting off with the proper crotch curves to begin with. Plus, if you have to add or grade up your pant sizes it makes it so much easier. You just trace the width of your pants block and continue that width down to the hem – instantly grading up your pattern to custom fit yourself.