The American Sewing Guild Conference Day 2

My next class which was on Friday was a Jeans Muslin Workshop, another all day class, with Jennifer Stern Haseman of J. Stern Designs.  Another wonderful day!  I was the first one finished--not sure how that happened, but that's okay!  It gave me time to shop in the exhibit hall where I went straight to Jennifer's booth to buy denim for my first pair of jeans.  I'm still running it through the wash (she recommends 5 washings to get the dye out and allow it to finish its shrinking) but hope this will be a completed project soon so I can enjoy them this fall.

Here's the denim along with a Swarovski jean button--sorry, that is very hard to see in the photo!

Here's Jennifer's pattern for the jeans:

One of the first things we did was to take our hip measurements and then try on the jeans muslins that she had available in ALL sizes.  She helped each of us individually look the muslins over and record changes.  She had some wonderful handouts with step by step directions leading you through the changes, plus pointing out any other patterns pieces that would need adjusting if you changed one area.  Very helpful.  She had her muslin and I think these worksheets packaged to sell as kits at the conference. 

Anyway, the muslins needed to be a snugger fit than the jeans will be--gotta say, I'm sure it works, but those muslins sure look awful and terribly unflattering on!  Let no sag or bump go unnoticed and yes, I will spare you a picture of me (or anyone else!) in the jeans muslins!  Here it is flat though:

Front

Back.  The little rectangles of extra muslin are there to cover up my name which I wrote all over the muslin.  Sure did not want to get my custom muslin confused with anyone else's!

Let's see if I can remember the adjustments we made:

-shorten the legs above the knee

-raise the waist 3"-4" (I'm not wearing low rise jeans!)

-add some room to the back because the side seam was pulling forward

-redraw the crotch curve (she automatically assumes that everyone needs to do this)

-add 1/4" to see seams for ease

In addition to her terrific directions and help in class, she has a blog J. Stern Designs blog that has additional information.  Jennifer, just like all the other instructors at the conference, was very generous about telling people to email her with questions.  She also had a khaki pants pattern that looked interesting and this really great looking blouse pattern with a peplum--those are so flattering on me.  However, I figured I had more than enough fun stuff to keep me busy for awhile!