I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… I can’t understand diagrams.   My brain has a hard time translating drawings into real life… and it always has.  This is a problem that plagued me in school.    Sewing patterns often depend on diagrams to teach you how to do something.  Were it not for the internet (and especially Youtube!) I doubt that I ever could have learned to sew or knit.

Part of the reason that I always make a muslin is that, predictably, I will screw up some part of the pattern that involves me translating from a picture.  On my current pants project I messed up the zipper, managing to sew it wrong twice.  Fortunately, by the time I got to the actual pants I had watched enough videos to understand how a fly zipper is sewn.  Unfortunately, I failed to do one of the last steps in the pattern in my muslin, and screwed it up on the pants.  The directions tell you to baste the waist facing in place, and then to fold the fly out over the facing and baste.  These instructions made approximately no sense to me, but the diagram showed the fly over the facing, and it wso that’s what I did, darn it.  Apparently I did it wrong, and I ended up having to redo that part after I sewed the seam and trimmed (naturally… why would I notice a mistake before cutting off fabric?)  I managed to get everything tacked down, but I do not believe that it looks exactly the way it’s supposed to on the inside (it looks fine from the outside, thank goodness!)

Ah well… I have only to sew on the closure and hem, and these pants will be finished.  I have mixed feelings about them, probably because I hate that I made a mistake, but my husband was very impressed by them, saying “those look really expensive!”  I just won’t show anyone the inside.  Pictures should follow this weekend, assuming we get some sunlight!  I’ve also finished my sweater, so that should get photos this weekend as well, and I’ve bought the new Kim Hargreaves book in celebration!  I’m planning to get started on my gingham blouse, which looks like an easy project.  I’m actually not planning a muslin, since it’s easy and straightforward – I will do a basted fitting instead, and we will see how that goes!