 Today we're going to talk a little bit about and maybe more importantly or more specifically the idea of a curved waistband versus a straight waistband. I think at least in the circles that I am in online there is this sort of notion that curved waistbands are better than straight waistbands or it indicates a pattern is better drafted and I just don't think it has anything to do with that. In my opinion the type of waistband is the shape of the waistband that you should be using depends completely on where on your body that waistband is going to hit and that is so perfectly illustrated using my ditto form. So as you can see here this is my body this is my ditto form which is an exact replica of my body. I went in I got a 3d scan and now I have a way where I can fit things on my body easily accurately without like some sort of like specialty in yoga but it's a really great way to show you guys too sort of the difference between a straight and a curved waistband. The body as you can see at least mine as at the natural waist which is where this waistband is sitting it's this line right here is curved I do have a very curvy body it gets more curved though below the waist than it does at the waist typically at your waist no matter what shape you are pair hourglass inverted triangle upside down unicorn whatever it is you have sort of flatter part or straighter part of your body at your natural waist which is why a straight waistband typically fits better than a curved waistband if I were to put this waistband down lower where there are naturally more curves to the side of the body than a curved waistband would certainly fit better. So let's take a closer look at each of these options like I said I have the curved waistband here and this pattern is simplicity 9267 it is a really kind of simple basic straightforward button front skirt so it is a curved waistband and this is what happens with curved waistbands on a straighter part of your body up here right here there is so much extra ease like a lot of extra each and you can also see because we have these like super big seam allowances I folded them up from the bottom but they create like this I don't know there's like a bucket effect there's like a lot a lot a lot of already extra ease under here and the seam allowance even whenever you trim it back is still going to create like these really kind of weird puckers versus the straight waistband so I literally just cut this waistband out of a straight piece of tracing paper I'm going to take that out so we'll talk about that in a second here and wrapped it around my body putting the seam line at my natural waist or yeah at my natural waistline which is this dark ribbon here and you can see with this that it still ends up being a little bit big but it's not big on the bottom instead it's big on the top which is so interesting because the curved waistband is smaller at this top line than it is at the bottom seam line but it's almost like too much here not enough here whereas for me with the straight waistband it's too much at the top and not enough at the bottom so I am almost going to be making like a hybrid of the two where I take out this small small small little pleat that ends up being I'm going to say roughly a quarter inch so a half inch total pleat from there to there so a half an inch so I'm going to create my own little curve that is much less curvy than this and curves to exactly fit my body which is the whole point I think assuming that a curved waistband is going to fit every body is very confident of a designer I think the amount of curve is so unique to each person especially at the natural waist as we start to go down into the curves of the body maybe a little bit less so but at the natural waist I don't think we need nearly as much curve as some of the pattern designers are giving us so I would much rather just take a straight piece of tracing paper wrap it around my body and then take out the small small little wedge that I have to take out and now I have a custom waistband that is made exactly for the shapes in the curves that I have so the next time you come across a pattern that has a curved waistband or a straight waistband for that matter try to reserve any judgment until you can either tissue fit or muslin that particular waistband of course like I said the beginning it definitely depends on where that waistband is sitting on your body and if it's higher up at your natural waist it's going to naturally need to be a little bit flatter that's just how our bodies are made if it's lower on the waist then you're going to have a little bit more curves there making a custom waistband using a ditto form or even just wrapping some tissue paper around your body is not difficult to do at all so I encourage you to kind of just maybe like forget about whatever waistband the pattern designer has included and just start making your own every single time you'll obviously have a much better fit in the end because it was truly made for you I mean think about it if we're having to make bust adjustment hips adjustments grading out here and there then why aren't we doing the same thing with our waistbands they deserve just as much attention as any other part of our body in order to get great great fit so so don't forget to check out the description box I have a link where you can check out ditto form she is actively on the road doing scans different parts of the country different times of the year so I'm going to link you to her schedule of course if your city is not on that schedule reach out to her anyways and let her know that you are interested because she will plan a trip around your area if there are enough of you that have expressed interest but that is going to do it for me today y'all thank you so much for watching happy waistband making and I'll see you very soon bye