Vogue 1507: The Muslin

I’ve had this pattern in my queue for a few months now. It’s a design by Rachel Comey. It’s very much my kind of pattern: pants, which I wear on a daily basis, and a design that is both unique in style and also well suited for everyday wear.

I decided to make a muslin, or toile, as it’s called in Europe. I really wanted to be 100% certain that the fit is correct before I cut the fashion fabric. I made some adjustments to the pattern to accommodate my petite pear shaped figure. I graded it up one size in the hips, and made a gradual grade down in size up to the waist. This resulted in a nearly 4 size difference between my waist and hips on the front yoke and back waistband. On the back yoke there’s a 3 size difference. Here’s some pics of the graded pattern pieces:

Once I had all the pieces graded, I went ahead and assembled my muslin. After it was sewn, I found an error. It turned out that I had forgotten to grade the back yoke to match the pants back:

At that point I corrected the pattern:

I then checked it for accuracy with the pants back:

I expect this will work well on the finished pants. I thought the fit was quite good even with the error, and I’m really, really pleased with how comfortable they are! I feel that I hit it out the park with this one, and I can’t wait to make them up in the fashion fabric, which I still have to buy. I thought I’d be able to use a spring like plaid that I’ve had for ages, but there isn’t enough yardage (darn!)

Here’s some pics of me in the completed muslin:

Note that some elements of the design that have nothing to do with the fit were excluded. I also noted that the sizing was different from the given measurements. I’m not a 14 in the waist according to the sizing charts but the yoke was nearly graded to that at the upper edge. Maybe it’s because it wasn’t only that size at the end angle? It could also have to do with the amount of ease intended for the design. Again, this points to the common sense of making a muslin.

I’m looking forward to making these!

Take care and thanks for reading 🙂