Muslin Love

Completed front of muslin

Do you love making muslins (or toiles)?

Yeah, me neither.

But I have to say that making a muslin for Butterick 5891 was great fun. It is a clever and well-crafted sewing puzzle. Love.

Butterick 5891 is that new top and jacket pattern that Katherine Tilton designed for Butterick. I loved the cover photographs, as well as the versions I've seen on her blog. I was pretty sure I would enjoy making it and wearing it.

Ordinarily I am not a big fan of Butterick and if I look hard, I can come up with things to criticize. But this pattern shows careful design and drafting. At least, my copy does.

Some reviews I've read are not positive. And that's why I made a muslin. It was not only necessary, but fun.

Completed back of muslin

Here are the issues I found:

• It's rated easy. I would rate it average to advanced. The order of construction is unexpected, and if you don't follow them carefully, things go awry. There 15 pieces in this little sleeveless top, most cut single layer. The jacket might be easy though.
• In step 32, there is a reference to large and small circles, as well as a marked stitching line. My pattern piece had 4 large circles and no marked stitching line.

I must remember to mark these pieces carefully to tell up from down

Step 32 covers the pleat in the left front peplum. The pleat in the other peplum is correctly marked and so it's pretty easy to just repeat steps 28-29 for the left front peplum.

I tried it on, and as others have indicated it fits most closely through the shoulders and bust, then angles away from the body. A style that appeals to me.

I should really take a picture of me in it to see if it suits me. Sometimes I get gaga over a design and forget to notice how it looks on me.

Double collar, each single layer. Love.

Back with no peplum, no collar

Oh, and this pattern is on sale right now. So go buy it now. You know you want it.

Front with no peplum, no collar