{"id":561,"date":"2013-11-06T07:24:47","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T12:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailysew.com\/?p=561"},"modified":"2018-03-27T13:43:26","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T17:43:26","slug":"pegging-mens-suit-pants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/pegging-mens-suit-pants\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegging Men’s Suit Pants"},"content":{"rendered":"

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My husband has always worn flat front pegged pants. Even though currently this style is easier to find in the stores, sometimes ready to wear pants are just shy of being how he likes them. So was the case with a recent pair of suit pants.<\/p>\n

Banana Republic makes a great, trim fitting, men’s suit. The jacket fit my husband perfectly in fact. The trousers however needed to be trimmer in the legs for his taste. Suit pants are pricey so you may think you need to send them to a tailor but anyone can peg pants. It’s easy and quick. The one thing you have to be extra careful about with suit pants is pressing.<\/p>\n

At home, I had my husband try on the pants so I could figure out the details of this alteration project. I always need a visual. First, I measured up from the hem to see where his knee was. This measurement is a reference point. Then I needed to figure out where to start taking the pants in. (We decided just below where the bottom of the pocket is joined to the outside seam and a few inches down from the crotch seam on the inseam.<\/p>\n

The finished taper should be subtle so start taking in the extra width up high on the leg and make it very gently come to your finished peg, anything drastic and they will look like jodhpurs.<\/p>\n

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With the pants flat on the table and the front and back of the leg stacked on top of each other, I measured the pants at the hem, measuring on the double. Note the back piece of the pants will be wider than the front piece, just as the back of human legs (the thighs) are larger than the fronts (the quads) so stack the pant leg evenly.<\/p>\n

My husband knows he likes a 16″ hem (that’s a 16″ circumference at the hem) so I knew what the altered pants would need to be. I now needed to know how much fabric to take in. If you don’t have any idea what you want the finished hem circumference to be then try on a bunch of pants (already owned favorites, or at the shops) to see what you or the person you’re altering for, likes and make a note of it. <\/em>I measure each leg separately and a good thing too because these legs were different widths at the hem.<\/p>\n

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I measure up from the hem to the knee to find out what the width of the leg is at that point. I write it all down.<\/p>\n

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I know I want the hem to be 16″ around so I take the difference (the current hem circumference minus the desired hem circumference) and divide in two. Because my pants are now laying flat on the table the leg is doubled – I’m only measuring half of the circumference when I measure side to side the width of the leg. So 8 and 5\/8″ minus 8″ = 5\/8″ – the difference – which divided by two is 3\/16″. I need to move both the inseam and the outer seam in 3\/16″ at the hem.<\/p>\n

I do the same at the knee (9 and 7\/8″ minus 9 and 1\/8″ = 6\/8″, divide that in two and it’s 3\/8″ taken in at each side at the knee). Remember to divide the difference (the current circumference minus the desired circumference) in two and take that off both the outer seam and the inseam.<\/p>\n

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Remove the hem stitches. Measure and mark how much you have to take the pants in on the hem crease.<\/p>\n

Always take in pant legs on both the outside seam and the inside seam so the leg does not twist or come to the front on either seam.<\/p>\n

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Mark at the knee how much to take in. Then go up to the starting mark and with a ruler, a hip curve and tailor’s chalk, connect the dots. Subtle and smooth.<\/p>\n

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Basically, the new seam will be from the mark close to the top of the pant (where the tapering begins) to the mark at the hem passing through the mark at the knee on BOTH sides. Remember, it should not be a drastic slope.<\/p>\n

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Pin the new seam line to prepare it for sewing. The original seam is still intact. It has not been removed. Sew from top down then press the stitching using a press cloth.<\/p>\n

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Remove original stitches. Open up the seam and using a seam roll or a rolled up towel press the seam open. Always use a press cloth on wool suiting so as not to leave a shine on the wool.<\/p>\n

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Fold the hem back up. Press. Hand stitch the hem back in place. Press again. Keep pressing until your seams and the original crease are once again crisp. And use a press cloth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My husband has always worn flat front pegged pants. Even though currently this style is easier to find in the stores, sometimes ready to wear pants are just shy of being how he likes them. So was the case with a recent pair of suit pants. Banana Republic makes a great, trim fitting, men’s suit. […] Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[272,273],"tags":[84,83,82,81],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sewing-clothes","category-fitting-tips","tag-aterations","tag-banana-republic","tag-mens-trousers","tag-tailoring"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/pegging-trousers-feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EZxn-93","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3728,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions\/3728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailysew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}