Printed, glued, traced, cut the pattern (straight size 14 with no grading for starters). Measured my intended fabric remnant against my pattern to check if it’ll fit; I reckoned I should be able to get at least view A out of it, especially as I was planning to narrow the back pattern pieces to do the half elasticated waist hack. Worst comes to worst I would make the waistband (and pockets) in another fabric. Mouse has great legs so the short view should work well.
Found a muslin fabric, and marked out the size of my fashion remnant on it, plus the selvedge/grain direction and direction of stretch (which is along the grain – is that normal??), so I could practice my cutting layout and check the maximum length I’m working with when I cut out the muslin. I’ll make the muslin as long as possible and then I can take it up a bit if she wants (the pattern is straight lines from the crotch curve downwards so easy to change the length).
I’m planning Winslows with an elastic back and slant pockets, so I added those hacks to my printed instructions so I wouldn’t get carried away and forget, and made initial adjustments (just for style changes, not sizing) to my pattern pieces: shortened the rise 1″, narrowed the width of the back pattern piece 3″ (so 6″ across both pieces), cut a slant into the front piece, and drafted a slant pocket piece. Helen suggests a 12″ x 12″ pocket piece but when I took the 2″ x 8″ slant out, 4″ of depth below the opening didn’t look enough, so I added 2″. I can always take it off if it’s absurdly deep – but who doesn’t want deep pockets? Used masking tape when amending my patterns because you can still see my writing through it, and I could take it off later to lengthen/shorten more.
Ironed my muslin. I don’t think it made much difference, as the fabric is half poly and wasn’t very creased to begin with, but I’m painfully aware that I don’t know how to cut fabric accurately, so I’m trying to give myself all the help I can.
Tested layout on the muslin. I thought I’d been all clever and managed to get all the layout to fit, but it was 10pm on a Friday, the straight pattern piece edges are confusing me, and I now notice I’ve got the fronts on grain and the backs on the cross-grain. Doesn’t matter for the (nonstretch woven) muslin, but for the (2 way stretch, printed) fashion fabric I’ll need to rethink the layout and check carefully. I wonder if I just flip the back pattern piece on the diagonal if that would do it?
I may not get the pockets out of the fashion fabric, but hopefully I can use some scraps for the 2 x 8 triangles that will show and use a cotton or something else for the rest of the pocket. This fabric has some warp stretch (seems weird?) so I would like to lay the horizontal direction of the pieces along the weft (IE put the grainline on grain), because I don’t want the stretch to interfere with the waistband and front pleats. I don’t know if it would? As a bonus I think I like the print running better that way too, vertically up the shorts.
Cut the muslin. We’re going with view B, which should be about knee length, and I’ll see how Mouse likes it and if a drastic re-steer is necessary. It would be nice to use as much of the print as she can manage to wear!
Pressed, stay stitched, basted the pleats. Sewed and basted the pockets in. Sewed the side seams. Sewed the inseams. Realised I’d gotten carried away listening to Ra Ra Rasputin and forgot I’m using the wrong side of the muslin as the right side, and sewn the inseam on the right side. Got the seam ripper out, felt a bit proud I hadn’t needed it yet, ripped out and resewed the inseam. Sewed the crotch curve.
Waistband continued in part 2…
to the touch 