Skinny Jeans by Peek-a-Boo Patterns and making clothes that fit

I had set a challenging task for myself, to make a pair of pants for my niece that actually fit HER! Miss E. is very tall and slim so buying a pair of pants for her is like trying to get JubeJube down for a nap...It just doesn't happen.

I've tested patterns a few times for Pee-a-Boo Patter Shop ( affiliate link), here and here, and was never disappointed with the pattern tutorials or fit of the garment, so when I saw the pattern for thier skinny jeans how could I go wrong.

First things first, take good measurements: waist, hips, inseam, and natural waist line (right at the belly button) to the ground. Just because your child wears a size 6 in stores doesn't always mean they're a size 6 when it comes to patterns.

This is the actual size chart from the tutorial and these are the measurements I had to work with.

Its not as simple as just taking a size 5 and adding length for the legs, you need to account for some of the length of the body, after all you wouldn't want to have your child wearing really low rise pair of jeans. This is where the magic of adjusting a pattern begins.

I started off with the back of the pants, the easiest piece to adjust. Notice how the rise of the back gets longer as the size gets bigger, and its important to maintain the rise to the respcetive height that you need or you end up with a plumber's crack.

I traced out the pattern for the rise that I needed and then...

Went to the width I needed and traced out the rest of the pattern piece. I worked the front pattern piece the same way making sure to use the same sizes as I did for the back piece. Once all my pattern pieces were traced out I just sewed them up as explained in the tutorial.

This is what my back pattern piece looks like. Notice the rise and the leg length is the size 8, and the width for the hips and waist is the size 5.

For your first time making such adjustments to a pattern I would strongly recommend that you test it out on fabric that you're not in love with so if you mess up you end up learning from your mistake and you still have the fabric you love!

Little things that you need to remember: if you making a size 5 for the size of the hips and waist and an 8 for the height your back pocket needs to be a size 5 or your pocket will be too big! The front pocket opening needs to remain the same so that it can be useful as a pocket. 

Who's ready to see the end result!

See the rest of this shoot on my sister's blog, Tanya Zaleski Photocreations, the photographer behind these beautiful images.

Until next time, xx.