My first 2 muslins - A Great learning experience and A Disappointment

I had never made proper muslins before. Almost all the clothes that I had made for myself so far have semi-fitted waists, which meant that I only had to fiddle with fitting the chest, back neckline and arms. I knew from making pants that I have a short front waist and high hips at the back. But I wouldn't have to worry so much about these areas if most of the non-pants clothes I have made were empire waist dresses/tops, loose fitting clothes.

I wanted to make a nice fitted woven sheath dress so  I decided to make proper muslins using the new McCall's 6887 (separate pattern pieces for A/B/C/D cups) and Simplicity 2404 (Amazing fit series with separate cup sizes as well). Both of these dresses are very fitted with fitted waists. It took a lot of adjustments, re cutting, resewing, etc. I don't have any cheap muslin fabrics so I just used my good linen blend and cotton twill fabrics.

It was such a learning experience! They were not wearable muslins, but I learned so much. For example, due to my high back hips, I had to make a sway back adjustment, even though I have a flat seat. Who knew? I thought sway back adjustments are for ladies with nicely rounded bottoms! And then I learned that I had to fold out the neckline because of my barrel upper chest. I carefully transferred all the adjustments onto the paper pattern. Most important of all, I also realized that with my rectangular body, it's best for me to wear slightly A-line dresses with undefined waistlines. That made the exercise of making muslins for the 2 patterns useless in the end.

Now that I had done all the' muslin-ings' and corrected the paper patterns, I'm not so keen on making the actual dresses anymore. It's almost like once the puzzle had been solved, the thrill of discovery was finished. Now I just want to do a muslin on another 'unexplored' pattern in my stash instead of sewing with that same pattern again! Isn't that just a waste of my good fabrics and my time? So although I learned a lot with the 'muslin-ings', I'm also a bit disappointed about it because I spent all this time and nothing to show for it! Oh well!