baby got back--yoga pants don't

Ever since I read Johanna's post about sewing workout wear, I've been thinking about making yoga pants. When I first bought my serger, I whipped up a pair using BurdaStyle Corrine, mainly so I would have an opportunity to get used to the machine while working on a low-stakes project. The results were...um...interesting.


Here's the front. Not too bad, at least from a distance, anyway. I wish they were a little tighter around the waist, to hold them up securely, and a little looser through the thigh. But then, there's the back...

**Warning! Truly terrifying tooshie pictures! Read on at your own risk!**


The back of the pants is, as you can see, a total disaster, primarily because the crotch length is way too short. This has the effect of pulling the back of the pants down and making them indecently low-rise. I'd be afraid to wear them to my pilates class, where I might actually bend over.

I think I know how I would need to alter the pattern to fix this problem. Kathleen Fasanella has an excellent series of tutorials on the phenomenon of the camel toe and how to fix it, and although she's primarily talking about jeans (and, of course, about the front rather than the back), I think the same principle would apply to my yoga pants. By making the curve of the crotch seam deeper, as Kathleen illustrates here, I could increase the length of that seam and make more room for my bottom inside the pants. I'd also lose some of the total width through the waist and hip. I could add that width back in at the side seam, but since I wanted to make the fit at the waist tighter anyway, I think I'd just leave it out.

On the one hand, this project has a lot of potential as a learning opportunity. I can re-draft the pants and make them again with comparatively little effort and expense, and once I have a good pattern, it will be quick and easy to whip up all kinds of workout pants, which I would get a lot of use out of. Since I aspire to sew jeans, altering the yoga pants might give me experience in pants fitting, and I might even be able to compare the flat patterns of the yoga pants and the jeans to get a sense of how the jeans will fit me.

On the other hand...Darn, that's a lot of effort for yoga pants! Especially since you can buy such nice ones from Target. And since I used the last of my black jersey to sew the pleat-front dress, I'll have to buy some more material for my next attempt. I can't say that it's the sexiest project in my queue, but we'll see if I ever get around to yoga pants 2.0.