Hidden in the fine print is the confession that when I made the DMB, I cut the inner body into three pieces, and the outer body into three pieces. For a body there was a "wide" piece that made up the portion of the body belong the flat-felled seam. The other two pieces were the bits that lay above it.
The wide piece is less than 44". So indeed the flat-felled seam technique to make the body wider will work---has worked for me.
Grizz