Okay, so some day soon I'm a gonna have some really nice pants. I better have some nice pants. Otherwise someone's going to get hurt (probably me attempting something daft with scissors and a quick unpick)

 

I finally finished a third "wearable" muslin of the Colette patterns Clover pants today. Thats right: Third Muslin. I now own two new fitting books (Singer Perfect Fit & Pants for Any Body (the 1970s version) soley because of this project. And I still don't really understand pants.

 

 

Now, I have made some serious changes since the first muslin...waaay back when I was naive enough to think pants making would be a blast. 

 

1. I went down one size in the legs and two sizes in the hips.

 

2. I added length to the back center seam, which seems to have fixed the gaping issues at the back that I've had with all previous muslins, and took in extra in the center seams at front and back which removed excess material floating round down there.

 

However, I never intended for these pants to be wearable, so I passed on the whole pre-washing the material. After sewing up a really crappy version, I then decided the fit was okay & it might be nice to get some wearable (imperfect) pants out of it. So I re-did them, this time pressing as I went. Yup. I now have pants a size too small.

 

What can you do!

 

 

Now while there is a whole lot of wrinkles going on due to these pants being skin-tight+, there is also something still quite strange going in with the crotch. Even in the previous (non-skin-tight+) iteration, there was still a confluence of wrinkles forming right at the bottom of the crotch area at the front (you can see them in the photo above too). Actually wearing these pants has been great, because I'm pretty sure I know what it is now....crotch length. Turns out its not actually that pleasant wearing pants with a short crotch.

 

I said it right back at the first muslin, but didn't believe it. I mean, I'm 5"3 if I stretch - I'm usually complaining of patterns made for giants! Even stranger, I didn't make any petite alterations at all. There's a little extra room on the hem, but still, I can't quite believe it!

 

Next time, I think I probably will make better use of the extra cm or so on the hem for the real pair. When you're on the short side, I don't know if ankle length pants are really truly your friend.

 

 

The back is pretty good now...and no gaping whatsoever which I'm happy about. Some tightness wrinkles which appeared when the pants shrunk.

 

Now to maybe finally make the real pair. After pre-washing the fabric I have....maybe twice....