Fix Gaping at the Back of the Waist – Pants and Skirts with a Waistband

The previous post explained the correction for slopers and styles without a waistband. This post shows you how to correct this issue on styles with a waistband. Remember that this correction works for pants and skirts the same way.

Gaping at the back of the waist indicates that the dart in the back is not deep enough. Before we even have a waistband or a yoke or anything like that, there’s always a dart at the beginning. This means you’ll have a dart there in your sloper.

*At the back-waist area, pin your style the amount you need to make it tighter and closer to the body.
*Measure the amount you pinned. You may need to pin into a yoke if you have one, or you may only have to pin on the waistband. This is up to your fitting sample.
*In your pattern, you will have a waistband and maybe a yoke. The shape of the yoke could change a lot.
*Cut along the waistband.
*You may want to pin a little bit on your yoke as well. Mark the amount you pinned.
*Go to zero wherever you stop pinning and then slash it closed. This means you’ll fold the amount you’ve pinned and close it. Note that the waistband pivots and gives us more shape. That’s going to hug the body better in the back.
*For the yoke, since it’s hard to fold over such a small amount, you can slash it and just close it.

If you had to continue pinning beyond that yoke, maybe down further, you can adjust the back pattern by taking it off slightly at the back rise and slightly at the side seam. This is if you had to slash at the bottom portion of that yoke, too.

Make sure you smooth out those yoke lines, smooth out the waistband seams, and true the seams.

This information and more can be found in The Fitting Book. Order your book today through the link below.