Jeans

After all my work on my pants pattern lately I figured it was about time I made myself a new pair of Jeans.

When I was last at the fabric store they had a couple of pieces of denim on their discount tables, both stretch denims in two different shades of dark, dark blue.  Perfect.  Just what I had been looking for.  I couldn't figure out which colour I liked better so, at $1.99/yard I figured it wouldn't hurt to buy both pieces, and that's what I did.

With every pair of pants I've made to date I've noticed one big issue.  I hot wash and dry all of my material before I start working with it, but every time I've made pants, after a couple of washes  the legs end up too short. Obviously my material is still shrinking in the wash.  So this time I washed and dried my fabric three times before I  cut it out.  Hopefully that will be enough.  I decided to start with the darker coloured denim first and ran that through the wash numerous times.

As far as patterns go I started with the pattern I used for my teal cords and black wool pants and then started playing around with it to make it into a jeans pattern.

The first thing I did was to remove the seam down the front of the pants.  I kept the back seam for shaping, but decided the front seam was unnecessary.  I then played around with the rises, both front and back.  I lowered the rise at the front by about 1.25", tapering out to nothing at the side seams, then raised the rise at the back by about the same amount, again tapering out to the side seams.

Once I was happy with that I went ahead and cut 2.5" off the top to create the waistband.  The piece that I cut off I kept and used to make the waistband pattern piece, just adding seam allowance at top and bottom.  In the back I taped the two waistband pattern pieces together to create a curved back waistband piece.

Then I headed to the drawing board to decide on the detailing for the jeans.  I looked at a number of different yoke styles and ended up deciding on an upward curving yoke , which allowed room for my back pockets to stay in the area that I like them.

I sketched the yoke onto my back pattern pieces and then cut them off.  I then taped the two pieces together to create a single yoke pattern  piece that just needs seam allowance added at top and bottom.

I cut out a pattern piece the size of the back patch pocket I wanted, and then drew some  curves onto it mimicking the curves in the yoke, and cut the pattern piece along these curves, so the pocket is made up of three separate pieces, each top stitched for decoration.

In the front I played around with a couple of different options for the front pockets and in the end decided on adding yoke pieces under the pockets,  that can again be top stitched for decoration.  After sketching the curves I wanted for the pocket and yoke onto my pattern pieces I again cut the pattern along these lines and used the cut out for my yoke pattern pieces just needing seam allowances on top and bottom.

Finally I just retraced the top of my front pattern pieces and cut them down to create front pocket pattern pieces and I was ready to cut into my fabric.  I had 2 yards of fabric and I think I used just about all of it.

Since the other pants that I've made out of this pattern have been made from non stretch woven material I knew that there would be a few alterations needed to get it to fit nicely in my stretch denim so I just basted my basic pattern pieces together to start with.  The original pattern was made with 1/2" seam allowances.  To account for the stretch I started by sewing all seams at 5/8".  The pants were still a little baggy so I then took them in another 1/4" at the top of the side seams and down through the hips,tapering to about 1.5" at the knee.  and then I brought in the front seam by 1/4'".  On the inseam I took an extra 3/8" off at the inseam tapering to about 1" at the knee.  From the knee down I tapered both the outside seam and the inner seam back out to about 5/8" in from the original seam line.

Once i had the fit to how I wanted it, I trimmed all the seam allowances back to 5/8" then started sewing it up properly.

I originally planned to top stitch these in red, but decided that i wasn't feeling it.  I found a beautiful teal thread in my stash and decided to use that instead.  I then pulled out my metallic silver thread and decided I wanted to add that in as well.

I started sewing on the back of the pants, sewing the seam down the back of each leg.  I flat felled each seam and top stitched them with two rows of the teal thread.  I then stitched the two back pieces together down the back rise, again flat felling and top stitching.

The yoke was sewed on - again flat felled and top stitched, however this time with two rows of teal with a row of the silver metallic thread in between.

The three sections of the back pockets were sewn together, each seam top stitched with one row of teal and one row of metallic silver stitching.  The top of the denim was tuned over to create a facing for the inside of the pocket and they were then finished  off with a piece of contrasting cotton fabric to enclose all the seams.  The pockets were then stitched into place on the back of the pants using two rows of teal stitching.

I then moved on to the front of the pants.  The front yokes were stitched in place and then top stitched  with one row of metallic silver and one row of teal stitching.

The pocket bags were made out of a contrasting cotton fabric with a small section of the denim material stitched into place over the corner where the pocket is visible from the front.  The pocket bags extend into the front fly.

For the front fly I used a metallic zipper that I salvaged from an old pair of jeans and installed it using my basic front fly method.  Making sure the all edges were finished including the pocket bags.  The fly facing is made using the contrasting cotton fabric interlined with a piece of the denim to add stiffness.  All stitching for the front fly was done using the teal thread only.

The front and back sections were then sewn together along the inseam and the seam flat felled and top stitched with two rows of teal stitching and finally the side seams were sewn up and serged to finish them.  They were top stitched from the waistband down to the end of the pocket bag using the teal thread.

The waistband is two layers of denim one of which is interfaced using a medium weight iron on interfacing.   The waist band is top stitched top and bottom with one row of teal and one row of silver thread and the waistband closes using 4 plastic snaps.  I didn't add any belt loops as I never wear belts and I used the snaps rather than a button as I hate buttons.

I wanted to keep as much length as possible so I serged the lower edge of the pants, turned them up 1/4" and stitched them with a single row of teal stitching.

I love these jeans so much, they are very comfortable thanks to the stretch in the fabric, I love all the style lines and top stitching.  However one minor problem is the waist band tends to stretch out quite a bit and they have a tendency to fall down.  If I can be bothered at some stage I'll open up the waistband and add some elastic into the back to keep them in place - either that or I'll have to add a few belt loops after all.