Monday Musings: Muslins and Mojo

I'm starting to see some real progress in my healing process. Yay!! And as a result, my sewing mojo seems to be slowly starting to reappear. Double yay!!  I'm actually even feeling like fabric shopping again.

So, my question of the day is: do you think muslin photos are actually helpful?   Let me explain...

Over the weekend, I plowed ahead with my Jean-ius trouser knock-off project. I'm not going to go into the whole process in depth, but after marking your trousers with basting stitches, you transfer those marks to organza and then to paper. From there you true the lines and then make a muslin.

The process - organza and paper, lots of pins and tracing wheel

When I tried on my muslin yesterday afternoon, I trotted down to the kitchen, giddy to show Phin how well the muslin fit. He immediately commented (unprompted) that it looked really good. The only changes were that the darts needed to be a bit longer and tapered (I did a very quick and dirty job on them), and I needed to take a bit out from the thigh, under the bum. Kenneth King actually demonstrates this alteration in the Jean-ius video. How lucky is that?

I used the method in Threads #133 to add the darts.

We headed out to the porch where the light was good, camera in hand, to get some pics for the blog. But when I looked at the resulting photos, I was horrified. The muslin looked awful! So, I had Phin re-take them. Same results! There were all kinds of lines everywhere and the bum was just heinous. Both of us were shocked because the pants muslin really fit well and looked good in person - just like the pants I'm trying to knock off. But not so in photo.

So, there you have it. I think that a muslin is a very helpful tool, but muslin photos are sometimes not helpful because they can make a small ripple look like a glaring fitting woe. The only way I could have altered the muslin to make it look better would result in eliminating all the wearing ease in the garment, which would be a big mistake. So, I've decided that the muslin is better not posted, and you will just have to take my word on the fact that it fit well.

What do you think? Have you ever had this experience or a similar one with muslin?

Last night I began creating all the extra pattern pieces I'll need for the actual trousers. Stay tuned, I'm hoping to have these done in time for my vacation in 2 weeks! 

Pants Pattern Parts: Front, back, fly guard and shield