The Cheater Gusset - Did I invent this?

This afternoon, after a surprising amount of work, I finished View B of the pattern you see above. These are a paperbag waist style of pants, rather full, with belt loops and a sash. Since pants with a defined waist at the natural waistline and a straight leg look best on me, I thought these would be a good choice to finish out the summer sewing plans. 

First of all, they were far more work than I had anticipated and I will get into that when I put up the review with pictures. In the meantime I wanted to share a fitting solution. I suspected what the issue was, went with a trial adjustment and it worked as you will eventually see ( she says sheepishly with fingers crossed).  I could not find my specific issue any where online, gave up and went with my suspicions. I named it the "Cheater Gusset". Why? Simply because I was lazy. 

Photo courtesy of "5 out of 4", 2017

The above photo shows someone's lovely backside with  my same problem: structurally wide boned hips with thinner legs coming out from them. What happens, and it was much more pronounced on my backside,  was an arch shaped curved  that  was a long wrinkle that went up one leg, peaked at the fullness of the bum but close to center back, made an arch across the butt, and then made it's way down the other leg, same way it came up, Le Arch de le Rump. My front of the pants hung very nicely. The back even looked quite good except for this weird  arch/wrinkle.  I had a feeling my back inseam was too big. I fiddled and played. I took them off and pinned a tuck with safety pins across the inseam. The tuck was only across the back inseams as my front was fine. No, I did not want to rip out serging and taping and seam allowances that allowed nothing as they were cut way back to the stitching. I tried on the pinned and tucked pants and my arch became one of Triumphe! Lucky guess!

Now I knew what to do. Again, I was not about to take apart that whole intersection. Now, why did I end up with this fit issue to begin with? Let's start with my body. Nothing wrong with it. It just has changed. I have wide hip bones, just a little lower than our lovely model above. I always had heavy thighs until the last few years which included weight loss, much lost in my legs. That could be one reason. I have space in retail legs now I never did before. I did do a toile, Top Down Center Out, out of an old soft sheet, and the issue did not show up there. I can only think it was because I was not seeing the two sides of the pant's rear interacting with each other. With TDCO, you only work with half the pattern and it came out just right. Could be fabric issue as well. I can tell you, this is the first time I have ever made this adjustment, whatever the reason is. Pattern? Legs getting skinnier? Fabric? Just crazy things to ponder. 

After I took the pants off and unpinned my SAFETY pins, I turned the pants inside out. Above you can see the tape on the back crotch line and my Hong Kong treated fly zipper above, (she smiles ;) . Once inside out I grabbed my hip curve and a marker. Starting one  and a half inches from the big 4 way intersection I made a horizontal fold crossing the center back seam. I roughly pinned it to keep the fold in place. I needed about 8 inches east and west of center back to work with. I got my curved ruler and marker and at center back I placed it one half inch from the fold and keeping the future seam fairly wide, moved down exactly 7 1/2 inches where the line/seam tapered to nothing and back into the normal inseam already stitched. I went back to the center back and reversed the process in the other direction. I ended up with the horizontal tuck you see above, half inch wide at center back, one inch north from the 4 way intersection and tapering to nothing 7 1/2 inches left and right of center back.  It's basically a fish eye dart across the inseam legs.

I proceeded to stitch and then to the ironing board. 

Here you see how the dart/tuck /cheater gusset is pressed toward the inseam and how it tapers to nothing and into the original seam at the bottom. 

Here you see the Cheater Gusset, it's now official name, completed. I do not feel this when I wear it. I may serge it down but for now will just leave it flat and as is. 

You cannot see the Cheater Gusset anywhere.  It's thin and deep into my nether regions. You can see the tied sash ends hanging in the background so the pic above is a bit confusing. I wrote the word Sash on them but that's a bit hard to read as well. 

I will remember this Cheater Gusset if I need it again. I saw many upper back of pants fixits but couldn't find a wrinkle map for what I had. Most addressed smiles and frown wrinkles, neither of which applied here.  I know I've seen them on rare occasions but when I really needed one I just couldn't put my finger on it. I will stay on the hunt and hope to find it and you can get a more accurate picture of my fitting issue. I am still positive on the Top Down Center Out method but making an entire muslin was never anything I shied away from either. 

So we have a new term today, sewing sisters and brothers, The Cheater Gusset. Remember you heard it here first and oh, it really just took a few minutes and was a very easy and quick fix. Hope I help somebody out there!

ETA: Why did I come up with this particular name? First of all, it looks like a gusset. Next, I did this in a place that often gets a gusset to better function. The word "Cheater" was used in the same context that the term "Cheater FBA" is used. It is not the "real" way to fix this problem with the back inseam on my pants. That would have been much more work and rather dangerous to the garment, requiring dismantling the whole 4 way inseam crotch area. So I cheated with a dart across the back inseam area and am proud of it, ;). So, it's not a real gusset but it looks like one and it's a lot easier to do because I cheated.  I thought some "splainin" was merited. 

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I got some new additions to my sewing studio recently. One of my neighbors moved cross country and on her last day she put things out on her lawn that just weren't making the trip, FOR FREE! This garment rack was like sparkling new and just perfect. I rolled it up the street to my home, gave it a swish and swipe with some Windex and arranged some of my precious fabrics on it along with some customer pickups. Perfect for my space. More changes to come. I love my new rack!  Happy Sewing.................Bunny