Jeans Part Two

Two pairs of jeans, both wearable, are now completed. The review will be up on Pattern Review shortly. The pattern is Marfy 0294, a free pattern from the Spring/Summer 07 catalogue. The top two photos show the first pair of jeans, with the more traditional shaped back pockets borrowed from a Jalie pattern. I designed the logo for the pockets myself and stitched it out on my embroidery machine. The top is also one of my creations (not that you can see much of it, but its quite a pretty print knit from EOS a couple of years ago).

The topstitching on this pair is done with ordinary Guterman thread and a triple straight stitch. the embroidery was done with the Gutermann too since I didn't want a shiny logo on my rear and only had shiny rayon in stock in Navy.

The lower set of photos show the second pair, with the heart shaped pockets which I borrowed from La Mia Boutique Sept 08, model 10. It is worn with a lime coloured tee, mentioned in an earlier post. The topstitching on these is done in Gutermann upholstery weight thread, and again uses the triple straight stitch. I really like the way this gives quite a heavy line. I have a pair of RTW jeans with a similar weight of stitching. The triple straight stitch also seems to lock the heavier thread into the seam better than using an ordinary straight stitch. On previous jeans attempts, I used the ordinary straight stitch but with thick top stitching thread and it didn't tension quite right and the top stitching got a little loose and where I drew the threads to the back and tied them off, they came undone with wear, leading to pockets coming off and random bits of topstitching suddenly unravelling. Not a good look.

It was a little hard to get some of the topstitching done. Even though I did hammer the seams well, I had to sew over some of the thicker areas by hand turning the wheel: a trick I learned after I'd broken my third size eighteen needle and had to turn off my computerised machine countless times after it threw a strop and gave up. Next time I might set up my old machine and do the top stitching on that.

Both pairs are from the same length of fabric, which sadly I failed to notice shaded from dark to light along the length of the piece... I cut all the pockets out from one end, so one pair of jeans has pockets which are noticably darker than the garment onto which they are sewn. But I figured they were still wearable since if people can wear jeans with holes, jeans with white wear lines designed into the garment when purchased (and not care that they don't coincide with the part of the body that would normally cause the wear) and jeans whose crotches hang down to the knees, I figure a couple of odd pockets won't matter all that much. They are comfortable, and I was teenager in the eighties... believe me, I've worn MUCH worse fashion atrocities than a couple of mismatched pockets.

The front pockets aren't quite right yet. On the first pair, they are too large and low. I altered them on the second pair, but have now made them too small. So I will alter this area again before I make another pair to try and get a more pleasing proportion.

The photos do show some wrinkling, but these jeans are tight and they only wrinkle in places where my tight RTW jeans wrinkle so I am assuming that they are supposed to be that way.

This is the best fit I've ever achieved, from either RTW or my own sewing room, so even if they aren't perfect, they are a lot closer than I've been before. I've worn the first pair and they are very comfortable. The second pair will get their first outing tomorrow night when I will wear them to go meet a friend for the evening.

If anyone can see a way I should improve the fit of these, then do shout up though. I am always happy to learn more about fitting and sewing.