hacking guide: balloon pants
A super easy hack for the All Well Studio Pants (which is pay-what-you-can, now and forever)! Balloon pants are as fun to wear as they sound. Voluminous, comfortable, but still fitted enough to feel good to wear out of the house. I love tapered pants, but in my postpartum always-home state, I needed something with just a little more ease. Balloon Pants feel exactly right. As icing on the cake, this really is one of the easiest hacks out there, with stunning results. We’ll show you how!
For this hack, you’ll need the Studio Pants pattern if you don’t have it already — you can grab it below. You’ll want to have already made a muslin and figured out any adjustments you need to make so you have a base pattern that fits you just-right in the hips and bum. Grab the pattern below if you don’t have it already!
Put a long piece of paper behind your Front pattern piece, along the outside edge of the leg. Spanning from the hip (across from the crotch point) to the hem, draw a gentle curve. I did this freehand, and just sort of felt it out — I wasn’t really aiming for any certain amount of added width, I was more going for a general shape. You can see an example of the shape you’re going for below!
Once you’ve altered your front, you want to add the exact same curve to your back pattern piece, so the two outer edges will still match. There are a couple of ways to do this, and they all involve sort of haphazardly tracing and cutting/taping paper — for example, I traced the curve for my Back pattern piece by flipping it over so it was facing the same direction as the Front pattern piece, that’s why you’re seeing the weird paper shape on the top of the Back pattern piece.) Use paper to trace the same curve again, and tape it to your back pattern piece so the two outer edges match. Check that they match by stacking them up on top of each other and comparing!
Once you’ve altered your pattern, you will cut and sew the pants using the normal instructions! We recommend the full elastic waist variation for this hack. I’m always surprised how quickly the Studio Pants sew up. Once you’ve gotten the hang of sewing pants, they come together in no time! With these pants, it’s really nice to crop them to just above the ankle, without a cuff — you might want to try them on and look in a mirror before hemming to find the perfect spot!
We like Balloon Pants in light to mid-weight fabrics like cotton or linen. You certainly could make them in a heavier fabric like canvas or denim if you want to, but they will be very stiff and the added volume will be more obvious — it’s really nice to have some drape here, and the lighter fabric really plays up the comfort of these pants too. You’ll be surprised how much structure even light fabric can appear to have with these pants!
I’ve been enjoying experimenting with prints for these pants, which I usually shy away from with bottoms. For some reason the Balloon Pants shape seems to lend itself to more color — at least for me!
Hope this hack adds some lightness to your studio days! Let us know if you make them! Use the hashtag #allwellstudiopantshack to share what you make if you want to share them on Instagram! Happy hacking!
