I can't believe I did that!

I've been trying to arrange and organize my sewing things, because I keep them all in my guest room and my niece will be coming to stay in just a week and a half, followed by her parents and sister a month later.  Yesterday I neatly folded and stacked my fabric stash, and put away patterns I had taken out of my pattern box.

In order to do that, I had to shift - yet again - the Clover muslin that's been sitting on top of the box since March, just waiting for me to cut a new waist band and finish them.  That thing has been taunting me, so I decided to just get to it.  And here they are:

With my vintage Shirt of Awesomeness!

I like them so much more than I was expecting to.  I'm not a huge fan of this cropped length (which I accidentally cut when making the muslin - I thought I was making the longer ones), but the fit is really great.  And I'm proud to report that things went much better this time, zipper-wise.   I did a few things differently from how I normally do, and the result was just perfect.  And I do mean perfect:  this is my best invisible zipper insertion ever.

No gaping, no waving, no hole at the bottom!  Mostly to remind myself later, but also for those who might be interested, here's what I did:

1.  I cut a strip of lightweight fusible knit interfacing about a 1/2" wide and fused it along the sewing line for the zipper.  This fabric has a lot of stretch, but doing that took care of my waviness issues!  Thanks to all those who suggested that in the comments after I finished my red ones!

2.  Instead of trying to make the top end crimp of the zipper line up with the 5/8 waist band seam line line I usually do, I pinned the end of the tape level with the top of the fabric.  That means that the crimp is now buried inside the seam, and I think it's much neater that way.  It was also easier for me to line up the second side to get a perfect match side to side.

3.  When sewing in the zipper, instead of trying to go beyond the pull with my zipper foot, I stopped sewing just before my foot reached the pull.  That made it a lot easier when I came back later to finish the seam, and took care of the gaping I usually get toward the bottom of the zipper.

4.  I was also able to get a much better press of the curved zipper by using my new ham - even though it's only half full so far!  I really can't wait til it's finished!

Now that these are finished and looking so great, I'm wishing I'd done a better job from the get-go.  I'm not really in love with this color, and because it was only meant to be a muslin, I didn't finish any of the seams - and I used red thread because I was trying to finish up a spool!  Despite all that, I think they're wearable.

I've been trying to get a lot of sewing done because I probably won't be able to sew at all once my niece gets here.  Besides these pants, I took pictures of three new finished tops today, so those will be coming up over the next few days!