Inching along

OMG I got no sewing done at all, this week, in spite of waking up every morning determined to fit a few minutes on something wardrobe-related into the day. The thing is, I'm deeply into some important-to-me (but dull to you, so I won't go into details) work projects that I long to complete, and that's been keeping me busy until it's too late in the day to attempt sewing without a too-large risk of stupid sewing errors. I've ended up collapsing on the couch to watch such intellectually challenging shows as Wipeout, which is good for a few belly laughs at hapless contestant expense every time. I find the compulsion to laugh at pratfalls fascinating, and the more laughs I can fit into the day, the better.

So, onward: here's where I'm at with the Marrakesh pant:

I ran out of actual muslin some time ago, this is rendition #2 from a sacrificed set of old cotton sheets. Believe it or not, I think I almost have a muslin that might possibly result in a good-enough-to-wear fit. I say "almost" because I have not dealt with the elastic/drawstring casing at the waist. What I did was cut a very tall front/back leg (literally about 6" extra at the waist) so I could do the thing where you tie elastic at the waist and pull the muslin up/down here and there until something looks right. I tried to get the elastic at where I'd like the pant drawstring/elastic to be, then took a black gel pen and marked at the bottom edge.

You can see in the photo above that the center back seam on my almost-fitted muslin is about 3/4" higher than the side seam. I am going to have to firmly remind myself, when I cut my fashion fabric, that as wrong as this looks it is right for me. The good news is that after making several muslins, each from the last without reference to the paper pattern, it looks like the back waist casing is a pretty close fit to the pant I've ended up with.

Not so much on the front, though. I'm going to try the front waist casing at the size 14 length and see how that goes:

Next up, cut casing pieces from some one of the previous muslin-fails lying around here somewhere, and sew those on for a final (please God let this be the last one) fit. I've read all kinds of reminders that when fitting pants it is imperative to include the zipper and fly at the muslin stage, but the thought of doing that makes me want to put a gun to my head. Seriously, I've been fooling around with this pant for about as long as I can stand. Dealing with fly extensions and a zipper is just too much. Plus, the waist isn't exactly "fitted" on this one, so I'm going to wing it.

I'd really like to get this next step done today, so tomorrow I can try to figure out length (my muslins are cropped to flood level because having to roll or pin up the bottom was driving me nuts) but it's about as hot and humid and sticky as it gets here. Where's a cool and drizzly day when I need it for comfortable sewing conditions?

Speaking of which, on recent cool and drizzly late afternoon I looked out the window of my home office and saw this fabulous double-rainbow (part of it, anyway; I grabbed my camera and climbed up to the top of the empty lot next door to capture the whole gorgeous thing):

What I saw from my house was more like this: