Jalie Jeans

These jeans are from my TNT pattern... one of those patterns that is dropping to bits from use and really needs either retracing or ironing onto interfacing to preserve it.

They are just basic jeans, not anything fancy, but they fit the way I like and I'm pleased with the way these came out. 

I actually used the Jalie waistband that came with the pattern and followed their attachment method for once, which involves sewing the waistband on the inside of the jeans, and bringing the clean finished/folded in edge to the front.  This is top stitched into place with the belt loops still hanging loose and then sewing the belt loops to the top of the waistband.  Normally I do two waistbands, an inner, often in cotton print, and an outer, so that both ends of the belt loops can be inserted into the waistband top and bottom very neatly with no raw bits.  I don't always do the back centre seam on the waistband either, but did include that on this version and in fact had forgotten that I normally use a shaped waistband when making the two piece band.  Having used a straight band I had to sew a  wedge in the back center waistband seam to stop the jeans waistband standing away from the waist.  I added a quarter inch extra to the fly extension because the last two pairs of jeans I made I had problems with the fly being slightly narrower than I would like it to be. 

I also had to add a non-jeans button.  This was because I messed up the length of my six step buttonhole and made it just a tad too short for the jeans button to get through it.  I did measure my test buttonhole, but as I did it manually, I must have stopped a hair shorter on the real thing.  In any event I had a red, white and blue button in stash and it looks like it was always meant to be that way, so I'm quite happy.  I took the photos late at night and the ones taken on the body didn't come out too great.  A bit dark.  Maybe I need to use flash indoors.  Still getting used to my new camera, but as you can see, I've mastered the art of the close up at long last.


The back pocket design is my favourite one for jeans.  It was, I think, a free design for my embroidery module, takes very little time to stitch out, always works out, rarely snaps the thread (my machine loves snapping threads on embroidery), and I think looks very Jeans-appropriate.  This one was sewn using variegated 40 weight thread from Robison-Anton.  The top stitching on the rest of the jeans is done with two strands of thread on top; a blue Gutermann standard poly thread and a rayon embroidery thread, in a blue that went well with the blue in the variegated thread.   Bobbin thread was bog standard Gutermann poly thread. 

I've hemmed them over long, because jeans legs do love to shrink up over time. 

Pockets are lined with quilting cotton in navy with gold stars on because I didn't have any red, white and blue fabric.