Taking in the waist of pink/red jeans

What I did:

Before

My client had bought these jeans at a thrift store. She was excited about wearing them, but the waist/hip area was quite a bit too large for her, so she asked me to narrow it.

seat of red jeans with a couple of safety pins in the center making the waist/hip smaller

Before: My client tried on the jeans and I put safety pins in the back to cinch them in enough that they fit her.

fingers holding down measuring tape over back waist/hip of red jeans, tape measures about 1.5 inches of excess fabric cinched in by safety pin

Before: I measured the amount we had taken in with the safety pins — it was about 1.5 inches.

After

For a smoother appearance, I divided the total amount to be taken in by two, and sewed two darts in the back of the jeans, widest at top and tapering at the start of the pockets.

closeup of the seat of red jeans, with two darts of sewing visible one either side of center belt loop

After: if you look closely, you can see where the two darts are — on either side of the center belt loop, at about 1/4 and 3/4 of the way around the back of the jeans.