Not me! It's a freaking waste of fabric, that's for sure, although fine, I get even more pissed if I sew something and it doesn't fit correctly, especially because it would have fitted perfectly if I'd JUST SEWN A FREAKING MUSLIN FIRST.
I compromise with myself in that, when I DO sew a muslin, I try to make it something that will be wearable in its own right, if it works, but out of fabric that I won't be sorry to repurpose or turn into dishrags if it doesn't work. It's even fun, because I'll make fabric choices that I wouldn't normally make, such as the time that I sewed this muslin for Syd out of mismatched stash fabrics that she loved but that I didn't care for and probably wouldn't use in garments of my own design.
How do I end up with stash fabric that I don't love? I cave to kids in fabric stores, that's how.
I've made two recent "muslins that aren't really," both for Syd's Trashion/Refashion Show garment for this year. One was this basic upcycled jean skirt--
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| It's sewn from a pair of jeans that fit Syd well in the waist but that were too short and had holes in the knees, to boot--mending the knees of kid-sized skinny jeans is a nightmare repair job! The front piece is stash flannel, the blue dotted bias tape is the last scrap leftover from this hooded towel, and since it wasn't quite long enough for the entire circumference I made two matching pieces of bias tape from the pink flannel to piece it out to fit. See? A little too mismatched for my taste, but the kid likes it just fine. |
--which I'm just now realizing the kid tricked me into making shorter than I'd like her skirts to be, but which also let me test out the construction method and desired look for the denim/formalwear fabric skirt that I'm entering in the show.
The other muslin is for a shirt that I'll also sew out of formalwear, but from stretch fabrics that allowed me to substitute jersey knit for the muslin. This turned into a shirt that I really love:
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| Why yes, I AM using the crap out of that "Think Spring" backdrop for as long as the drive-in owners keep it up. Fun fact: the other night, while I distracted the kids, Matt had to sneak over there in the dark and fix it back, because we came home from fencing and ballet to find that some hooligans had changed it to "Thick Pricks." And THEN about five minutes after Matt had gone out, I saw the lights from a police car RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE! I was about to tear outside and run over to inform the cops that Matt was FIXING IT, DAMMIT, but just then he came back in and said that he'd just finished, and the lights were just a police car pulling over a speeder. Whew! |
The sleeves of this pattern were too short--see? So glad that I sewed a muslin!--and I was sewing late at night while Matt was finishing up a Girl Scout cookie booth with the kids and I managed to sew the ribbing on one cuff inside out. I just sewed the second cuff to match.
I altered the pattern piece of the sleeves to lengthen them after this, but then it turns out that the formal blouse that I'm using for part of the shirt in Syd's Trashion/Refashion Show garment doesn't have enough material for full-length sleeves, anyway, so that shirt will actually have half-length sleeves.
Oh, well. I like this pattern well enough that I'm sure I'll make a few more. You can't have too many long-sleeved hooded T-shirts!
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