Black Terry Lined Denim Pants

This fabric was another of those impulse buys.  I found this on a remnant table - It's a black denim on one side and on the back is a white terry type fabric.  This gives a speckly look to the front of the fabric.  It has some stretch to it - Maybe 20% but other than that I can't tell you much about it.

The outside feels just like a denim, the inside is just slightly fluffy (though  not as warm as I had hoped)

I only had 1.5 yards of it and it was quite narrow so I really struggled to get a pair of pants out of it.  But I really wanted those pants so I did what I had to to make it work  In this case I cut my pattern pieces at the knees.

and then one of my back pieces a second time below the knee....I'm calling it a design feature.

I thought about putting zippers in around the knee but in the end decided that these pants were not going to warrant that much detail so each seam is just serged and then top stitched down using plain back thread to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

The pattern I used for these is a new one that I'm working on - taking the best details from all my other jeans patterns and putting them all together.  The pattern was pretty good right off the bat with one exception - as per usual the under butt region.  However by taking out the back seam and pinning it in place and taking a dart where needed right under the butt I actually ended up with a pattern that I'm quite happy with.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough fabric to recut the center back piece after updating my pattern so I made the most of it and just sewed the dart - again it's a design feature don't you know!

The only thing I'm not happy with it that all the sewing and ripping out left a lot of little loops pushing through to the good side of the fabric that I can't do anything about - Oh well.  Thankfully after a couple of washes its going away a bit, but I still have a few white flecks showing through along the seam lines.

I had planned to make these proper fly front pants but with all the little issues I decided to just finish them off simple and make them a cozy everyday sort of pant.  So I cut off the fly and sewed up the front seam.   Since the fabric had plenty of stretch to get the jeans on and off I just added a waistband made out of black ribbed jersey threaded with 1.5"wide elastic.  Comfortable. Easy.

I added front slash pockets - using an old business shirt of my husbands as the pocket bags.  I actually joined the two pocket bags in the center to make one big kangaroo type pocket which I quite like.

I didn't have enough fabric to back patch pockets so the back is just plain.

The bottom hem is simply double turned and stitched.  Now to hope that this fabric doesn't shrink any more in the wash which is what seems to happen to all my pants.

I quite like these pants.  They feel comfortable, fit nicely and are just a simple pair of pants for everyday wear.  And now I have a pattern that I can make more pants out of - Hopefully.