Today we’re going to be letting out the waistband of this pair of pants to make them about two inches bigger.
You will need:
All purpose sewing machine Thread that matches your pants
Sewing pins
Scissors
Seam ripper
A sewing machine
Your pants
First you need to determine how much bigger you want the pants to be. Measure your waist and add a half and inch to an inch. Measure what the waistband currently measures, and determine how much you need to add. For example, if your waist is 40 inches, your ideal new waistband measurement would be 40.5 - 41 inches. If you measured the pants at their current size, and they only measured 39’, that would mean you need to make the waistband bigger by 1.5 - 2”.
So first you have to see how much fabric is available to be let out. We have a limit to how much we can add to the waistband, and it depends on the seam at the back of the pants. If we look inside the pants, we can measure how much extra fabric is in the seam. If there is at least 1.5-2” extra fabric over both sides of the seam combined, then we can proceed in making these pants fit.
On the particular pair of pants, I’m going to be letting them out by 2”.
The first thing you’ll do is use your seam ripper to open up the waistband. We will also remove the belt loop that is in the center back to get that out of our way.
Watch to learn more...
I hope you enjoyed Episode 4 of the Basic Alterations Sewing Skills Series. If you did, please give my video a Like. If you tried this, leave me a comment down below. I would love to hear how it went. And to make sure you don’t miss next week’s episode, make sure you Subscribe to our Channel! I’m putting out a new episode every week with a sewing skill that will help you fix different problems with your clothing items, so you can get back to wearing them. Thank you for tuning into the Pindrop Shop, and until next time, happy sewing!
