One Muslin Down

We've had a slight change of plan for the week. Older DD will take her two younger siblings to her grandparents for the rest of the week; they'll leave in the morning.

So my plan to work a bit each day and have a tested out muslin for pants for The Flute Player had to be, um, accelerated a bit.

So today I got the pattern altered, the muslin cut out and basted together, and alterations pinned out and transferred to the pattern. Whew.

She would wear a RTW 14, if the back waist didn't gape by about 4" on almost every pair she puts on. I used Simplicity 4839, since I thought that was a good basic pants pattern. Her waist measurement is barely a 10; her hip is a 12 but most of that is in the rear; she has a full fanny. I decided to start with the 10 and just do a 'full fanny adjustment'.

I began by scooping out the back crotch (the fullness in her fanny is rather low), adding what I 'scooped' to the side back seam all the way from waist to hem, and I removed that amount from the inner back seam, tapering it from the bottom of the bias point to about the knee, then consistent from there down. Basically, the leg gets shifted over just a bit, since her actual hip is not real curvy.

here is a very crude sketch (I stink at this kind of thing):




Then I added 5" in length, in about 1" increments. One of those increments was above the crotch; the rest were in the leg. Then I added an additional 1/2" width to the side back seam only, from the waist to the full hip, then tapering back into the side seam. I trimmed 1/2" off of the center back, tapering it into about the top of the curve (basically, I added a dart at the CB to take out the extra at the waist). Voila...a Full Fanny Adjustment.

When I put the pants on her, the front crotch was WAY too long; I pinned out everything I added plus a bit more there. The center back crotch was spot on, though, so I had a big dart in the side of the pants back at hip level to take the side length down to match what I needed in the front. I also pinned out about 1" excess width in the front waist, and took 1" back out of the pants length in the legs (I didn't want a 2 1/2" hem).

Just looking at the back, though, it was the best fit I've ever seen on her. That was VERY encouraging! ;)

So, off they came and I transferred those alterations to the pattern. I have some corduroy from my grandmother in the stash in the attic; that'll make a good first try to see if I've got the alterations right.

Ultimately, this was what I did to add fullness to the back:

Even if it's not perfect, it'll still be way better than anything I could buy for her. Hopefully I'll have a pair done by the time she gets home Saturday night.

And I got the neck/front/bottom of my blue jacket all bound...but I ran out of binding and need more for the sleeves. I *think* I have some around someplace...