Marfy 1666 - Muslin

Today I constructed the muslin for the trousers. Construction wasn't quite as complicated as I'd expected. But then, somehow, Marfy patterns always fit together better than any other pattern I've used.

I was able to use the process I'd seen in Threads to make the waistband/yoke treatment, which involved attaching the outer piece of the yoke to the top of each trouser leg unit and then sewing the inner yoke piece at the waist seam before I constructed the trousers. This gave four units which I then sewed together as "left leg" and "right leg" then put one leg inside the other to sew the crotch seam. This means that if the trousers must be altered, I can take in, or let out, the whole of the side seam/yoke section easily without taking off the entire yoke, because the side seams and centre back seams are one long seam that goes from the hem to the base of the inner yoke piece. Hopefully that makes sense. Its not so easy to explain, but it did seem to work well. I can't find the exact article I saw now but there is an article about easy alter waistlines in issue 157, page 62, which shows the general idea.

The photos of the muslin didn't come out all that well, but I think you get the general idea of the fit. Exactly as I suspected, I needed to take off the width of the seam allowance at the waist on each side, tapering to nothing at the hip. In order to avoid messing with the pocket, I tapered to nothing just at the point where the pocket goes into the side seam. I find that if I try to make alterations on the actual pocket itself, it will all go very wrong. Conveniently, on the other side, the alterations could be confined to the yoke part. I drew the first side seam curve, then laid subsequent pieces over that to ensure I got the curves exactly the same on both sides of the garment. A variation on a trick I was taught in tailoring class, where I was told to cut alterations with both front and back tissue pieces on top of each other, held together to ensure an exact match.

You can see the alterations are pinned into the side seams on the muslin. I had already scooped out the crotch curve a little, and that seems to have worked well. They feel comfortable, I can sit down in the muslin easily and the back doesn't pull down. The legs appear a good width and I like the look of the detailing. I am not certain that I will put the two welt pockets in the yoke, but may well put the pocket flap on, as a blind flap, for interest. I just don't think I'd use a pocket in the yoke, plus my fabric may be a touch on the heavy side for making welt pockets in the yoke.

I managed to stretch the slanted part of the pocket when I was pressing the muslin. I've made a note to stabilise the pocket edge as soon as I've cut the piece, in the final material.

The flaps hanging loose in the yoke photo are the strip that the buckle will attach to, and the yoke section that will go through the buckle. The section that will go through the buckle folds back on itself with snaps to hold it in place, rather than using a buckle with a prong. The spots where the snaps go can just be seen in the photo.

So there we have it. A muslin for trousers with only two alterations apparently required. I hope to get the actual trousers cut out sometime next week. However, I can't cut anything else out at the moment as the workroom is full of PJ's in progress and I have a shawl to finish.