BWOF 04-2009-119 - A Muslin

Let me start by saying - NEVER, EVER, EVER in a million years would I ever have expected to ask my husband to take picture of my butt and THEN - POST THEM ONLINE !


My pants for the PR Wardrobe required a muslin. I haven't made pants in about 15 years and those were before I knew anything about fitting !

My muslin fabric was at the end (that's the explanation for the short front legs LOL) so this is one pattern tweaked a couple of times rather than cutting a new full pair of pants each time.

I started with a straight 42, no changes.
The front seems fine. My left side has a long vertical wrinkle that I didn't notice right away. The back - I need a swayback adj & there are those darn wrinkles under the butt ! Side seams and grainlines (very light pink chalk line, sorry) are straight.


I logged on to PR and spent quite some time searching and reading up on pants fitting - Woo Boy ! If you ever think you're the only one with a certain problem, just check PR - we have lots of company. It took a while, but I figure at least some of these wrinkles tell me I've got a flat butt.

In the first pic below, I made a 1/2" swayback adj and sewed the back crotch 1/4" deeper. The next 2 pics show what happens if I pull up the back and if I bend forward a bit. According to the forums, that means I should need either Debbie Cook's Fish Eye Dart or Ann Rowley's Flat Butt Adjusment.


Test #2 - Hoping this would allow some of those outside wrinkles fall, I let out each outside seam 1/2" at the waist tapering to nothing about 9" down. On the back left leg, I opened up the inseam a bit and basted out a 1/2" wedge tapering to 0" at the side seam. It helped some, but there is still wrinkling and there is alot of fabric at the top of the inseam. Back to the boards and the fitting books.


Test #3 - Maybe a size smaller at the back inseam would help. I opened out the crotch seam and each inseam down about 30cm. I folded out the 1/2" wedge across the right back leg to match the left leg. I took in 5/8" of each back inseam tapering out to the original side seam a bit before the 30cm mark.
Hmm, looking straight at the back, they look better. The side views, though, still show the fabric bunching just under the butt.


Now, not all the wrinkles are gone, but they feel like they fit well and would be wearable. I have no more muslin to try again. So, I'm going to cross my fingers and cut my fabric.


Parting Shot

This was my morning activity - one more type of cookie in the freezer.
Is it just me or does this NOT look like 28 dozen cookies ?!
Those stacks are all 4-high and thats what I counted but boy, they don't take up alot of space, do they ?

Spritz Cookies