I think I have mentioned that I have large hips before. It’s not that my hips are ‘large’ they are just disproportionate. I’m going to do a brave thing here… and tell you guys my measurements. I’m roughly 35.5in – 27in – 40.5in, that is my bust, waist, and hip measurements. I know them because I sew. It’s also a very useful set of information to have on hand when ordering clothes online. Now according to most clothing manufacturers a woman’s hips should be roughly 10 inches larger than her waist. Mine measure in at roughly 13-14 inches difference, meaning my hips are generally at least one size larger than expected. Here’s a chart example from one of everyone’s favorite online retailers Modcloth with my measurements circled.

Image is courtesy of Modcloth (I did the circling)

This really just means sometimes I have to alter clothing that I buy. So I thrifted these green jeans the other day that fit me well across the hips but the waist band was a little out of control.

Sad face notes the several inches that this waist needs to be taken in.

So I pulled out my seam ripper and went to work. I pulled apart the waist band in the back and down the first several inches of the back seam. The next part I did partially incorrectly because I just pulled the fabric so that it overlapped instead of trimming, so my back center seam did not remain straight. When this alteration turned out not to be enough, I added two darts on on either side of the back center seam pulling it in another inch or so on each side.

Then I trimmed the waist band and reattached it. The funky little fold you see is the REAL center of the jeans so you can see how the back seam has been moved over. Then I reattached the belt loop to try to really hide the off center seam.

I’ll be honest, this isn’t the ‘proper’ way to alter a pair of pants. Moving the center seam throws the fabric grain off in the back (which can make clothing lay funny), the two darts modify the fabric even further and do add a little pucker on each side. But overall a well spent half hour to fix these $3 pair of pants. Here is the after photo.

Sorry the photo is a little blurry indoor shot are hard, there aren’t many windows in my apartment. I wore them out of Sat and they look pretty awesome. There’s a real outfit post tomorrow (for the Everybody Everywhere link-up). Though they still need to be hemmed (I’m a shorty with big hips) I wore them while curly-haired boy and I started thrifting for our Halloween costumes (we start on costumes really early) and then to a move in party at our friends house.