How to add extra room for your backside - skirt

There's no escaping it no matter how hard I fight it. Each year I swear this christmas will be different.

I will not eat enough for four people.
I will not consume my body weight in Christmas pudding.
I will not succumb to the delicious, delicious turkey.

Fight as I may, when I put my two feet on the scales in January (with a drum-stick in one hand) I know who won the battle in the 'Julia Vs Christmas' fight.

Sigh.

Logic would have you think that if you're already well endowed in the backside area, that a few extra pounds would lodge them selves somewhere where I'm lower in fat; the elbows for example or my arms. But oh no. That extra stuffing goes right where I don't need it ... like my backside is handing out pamphlets around town saying that it's the best place for fat to visit. Thanks so much.

So, instead of wearing my sweat pants everyday for the next month and resigning myself to a dinner of carrot sticks, cardboard and dust particles I decided to embrace the extra 'junk in my trunk' and make my skirts with just an itty bitty extra space.  This adjustment will add extra room without changing the side seams or hem. That way no one is the wiser. Yes Shakira, sometimes hips CAN lie.

I just made this adjustment on a dress that I'll be posting this week.

So let's get busy:

1. Trace your back skirt piece onto tracing paper and get your scissors and markers ready. The pattern piece I'm using is for a short skirt just to give you a bit of context.

2. Draw a straight line right through the hip line from the side seam to the centre back (CB). I've done this in a blue marker below.

3. Draw a straight line right from the waist down to the hem. I've done mine right next to the waist dart.

3. Now you'll see a blue cross on my pattern piece above. With your scissors, cut down that blue line that you made starting at the waist and all the way down to the hem stopping about 5mm above the hem creating a 'hinge'.

4. Now cut across your hip line starting at the CB all the way to the side seam, but being careful to leave a hinge at the side seam.
The whole point of this adjustment is to add extra room without affecting your side seam or hem.

5. Your pattern piece is now effectively divided into four pieces. If you've done it correctly you should have two hinges; one at the hem and one at the side seam.

Spread your pattern pieces out by the extra amount that you need.

6. You'll see that the side seam and hem have not changed, but the CB has lengthened and so has the waist. We'll be altering the waist dart in the next few steps to retain the original waist.

Tape paper underneath your opened pattern piece. I always did love cutting and pasting as a kid.

7. Now we want to get that waist back to it's normal length.
Measure the amount that you added at the waist. You'll see in the picture below that 15mm was added.

8. Split the measurement in half and add it to either side of your original dart. The amount I had added to the waist was 15mm, so I added 7.5mm to each side of my original dart (7.5mm + 7.5mm = 15mm).

Draw a new line from your markings to the dart point. I've done mine below in red. This is now your new dart.

And now you have a new skirt back with extra room at your seat without affecting the side seams, hem or increasing the waist.

 Maybe I can hold of on getting back into my exercise regime for a few more days now.

Happy eating sewing!