I thought this may be useful for other pear-shaped gals out there.
I need some new trousers and have put on a few pounds since I last fitted my basic trouser pattern, so I need to adjust it to accommodate my increased curves. Although I could just add to the outer seams, I never find this very satisfactory as its my entire hip/bottom area that carries additional weight, not just the outside hip/thigh area.
Bear in mind that I have already fitted this pattern to my not-quite-so-fat pear shape so it doesn't need drastic alteration from my original. It does from the original magazine pattern.
For starters, you can see quite clearly that this will not be a wearable toile. I like to be very clear about where I need to alter things and my favourite for this is to write on it with a nice, dark, permanent felt tip. Definitely not wearable. I dragged an old piece of plain cotton from my stash. This is my favourite fabric for toiles as it has reasonable body, isn't too expensive, it's plain and easy to write on. By having a mid-range colour, I can see both white chalk and felt pen (except blue in this case!).
My paper pattern has no seam allowances. I rarely put seam allowances onto paper patterns that I trace as it's more accurate without and easy enough to add them on when cutting out fashion fabric, so the inner line you can see is the original stitching line.
I always mark my straight grain line as soon as possible. If you plan to use this as a pattern, which is the whole point, you need to know where this runs. Don't be shy with that felt tip.
These are the changes I've made:
1. added a smidge extra at the outer hip, approx 1cm. This will give me an additional 4cm around here once I've mirrored it on the front.
2. scooped out the back crotch seam. This is an essential alteration for pear-shapes/big bottoms. A bigger bottom means a deeper curve and will make these trousers a whole lot more comfortable.
3. added extra height at the centre back waist. Again, by the time the seat of my trousers has curved all the way around my ample behind, it can run a little short here. I'm not sure how much I need to extend it yet, so I've added plenty and will adjust once I fit the toile on me.
You can see that I've added nice wide allowances all around the pattern - better to be generous at this stage than mess around with sewing bits together if you don't have to.
I'll post the next stage this evening, sadly work beckons now.