Eureka

Well, you'd think that as much time as I spent thinking about how I was going to put together Scott's doublet (Simplicity 5574) before I actually started cutting, that I would have figured everything out. But nnooooooooooo. Some things don't occur to me until I'm in the middle of the process. In fact, they only occur because I'm in the process. Like the "lamp unto my feet", the next step is illumined as I come to it.

I've been wrestling with that weird curvature in the center front since I picked up the pattern. It creates a "paunch" in front, which I assume allows room for the man's belly, except it's in the wrong place for my man's belly. I finally let the side seams out at the waistline where he needed a little more room and decided to live with the rest. After all, he will probably only wear this once a year. I'm grateful he's wearing it at all; he only agreed to as an act of love towards me! What a great guy.

Yesterday I stopped working just short of attaching the peplum to the body. If I hadn't stopped there, this morning's brainstorm would have been too late. In fact, if I hadn't accidentally attached the front pieces wrong side to right side (I was on the phone at the time!), which set me behind a good half hour, I would have gone too far. So everything really does happen for a reason... (Incidentally, I solved the problem by moving the button loops and front extension to the wrong side, making it the new "right side". The basting was a lot easier to pick out than the seams. So glad I skipped the fancy stuff and stuck to fabric with indistinguishable sides!)

So this morning I thought, why not just pull in the center front? I had considered redrawing the front before, but I just don't have the experience to "see" how it needed to look. This morning in a flash, we put the doublet on, pinned and marked the front where we want it to close. I'll take the marked garment to sewing class today and confer with Tina (my instructor) before I go cutting-happy. But I think it will work.