I mentioned before that I was calling last week Selfish Sewing Week because I was on spring break and had a bunch more time to sew. I didn’t get quite as much done as I was hoping to but I made some pretty awesome progress on a few things.

The big accomplishment last week was that I got a muslin made of my Ginger Jeans. I’d been trying to figure out a mash up of the two versions, a lower waist with skinny legs. I think I’ve managed to try to do this the harder way by slimming out the legs on the version with the lower waist instead of lowering the waist on the version with the skinny legs. I made some pattern alterations ten days ago and then on Thursday I got it stitched up. I’d ended up taking off 3/4 of an inch on both sides of the leg, front and back, grading out to nothing a couple inches above the knee. I also took out two inches of length at the knee. I’d been sort of worried that the pattern pieces as I’d cut them out, in a size 8, just looked way too big. Fortunately I was pretty happy with my muslin.

I’d decided to make a real muslin instead of just basting together my real denim because other than my Hudson pants I’ve never made pants before. As I was trying to make a number of alterations, in ways that I’ve never done before, it seemed like it made sense to put in the small amount of time to do a muslin.

I discovered that I most certainly took out too much width on the legs. I tried to hard to get that muslin on but couldn’t get it pulled up all the way. I looked pretty ridiculous trying to make that happen. I ended up just chopping off the pants at the knees and was able to get them on and get them all the way up. And guess what??

They fit!! I’m going to add 3/8 of an inch back into the legs when I cut my denim. I’ll baste them though since I don’t know how the stretch in the denim will work itself out. I can’t wait to start working on these.

I also made a muslin of the Felicity Dress bodice. I was a little concerned when I read that she drafts for a D cup, which I most certainly am not. But I think because the bodice has gathers instead of darts it works pretty well.

I also finished off clipping threads and such on my Sutton Blouse and got the pleats hand-basted on my Natalie top. Hopefully I can finish Natalie off soon and it’ll be warm enough that I can take photos of those.

Finally, I got a quick make cut out over the weekend. I fell hard and fast for this reversible sweater knit at Joann’s last week. It’s not made of synthetics!! Rayon and cotton all the way. I’m cooking up something awesome, you’ll have to check back later to see how it worked out.

Hoping to get a muslin for Minoru started soon. And I’ve got a couple small quilting things to finish up. Busy busy busy around here.

-Hannah