Ames Jeans

After making a couple of pairs of jeans for our last photoshoot I was inspired to try and make a pair of jeans for myself that are actual jeans - all the bells and whistles - I wanted to use the rivet press whilst I still had access to it and make a pair of jeans that looks store bought....and I think I almost managed it.....

I say almost as I decided at the last minute that I couldn't leave the back pockets blank - that's just not me, so I sat down an sketched out a number of different designs, mainly based around different animals. In the end I decided to go for the stylised elephant.

I'm so happy with how he turned out, it took a lot of very slow sewing to get those curves smooth - in places it was one stitch at a time - sew one stitch, then pick up the presser foot and adjust the fabric, sew another stitch ...and repeat.

The pattern - I decided to try out the Ames Jeans from Cashmerette since I'd just sewn them twice.  Based on my measurements I sit between a size 12 and 14 through the hips and legs but then I'm a size 20 or so at the waist.  So that I what I started with.  I cut a size 14 from the ankles up to the hips, then graded out to a 20  using the apple pelvis, keeping the extra height from the size 20 as well.  

I had the original muslin I'd used for one of the photoshoot pairs of jeans - they were a size 20-22 so it was actually quite easy to unpick them and recut my pattern out of the existing pieces.

Then came the fun part of trying to get them to fit - because they certainly did not fit straight out of the packet.  The first thing was there was a lot of extra length at the sides.  At the center front and center back the height was pretty good but I had to take about 1.5" length out of the side seams between waist and hips.

The next issues was the back under the bum.  They fit fine through the hips but there was a lot of extra fabric at the back of my thighs.  I pinned out a fish eye dart from the middle of my butt down the back of my thigh to my hips.  I took out about 3"in total.

I needed a knock knee adjustment to get the bottom of my legs to sit straight, then finally I flared the bottom of the legs from the knee down, cutting it up the middle and adding about 4" extra width at the bottom on both back and front.  

I made all these adjustments to my pattern pieces, then recut my muslin yet again and this time I was quite happy with the fit.  A few minor tweaks taking out of bit of width here and a bit there and I was good to go.

It turns out that I could have take a bit more fabric out of the front pelvis, but other than that I'm really happy with the way these are fitting.  

So now I could go ahead and make them up.  I used a standard copper topstitching thread on these, made the pocket bags out of some left over plaid cotton.

Even added in the belt loops - which I'm very happy about since I actually find that I need to wear a belt with them.  I think I underestimated the amount of stretch in my fabric since, even with my standard elastic waist they still slip off my hips.

The only change I made to the construction of these pants is to add some elastic into the waistband.  As my waist and hips are basically the same dimensions I find that even with a beautifully contoured and fitted waistband my pants still slide off my hips.  so by added some negative ease into the waistband with a piece of elastic I can usually keep them up.  It makes them look not so nice when they are not on the body, but once they are on you can't tell.  Can you tell there is elastic in that waistband?

Overall I really love these pants and am so glad I made them.  One or two more tweaks to the pattern and I think these will be staple in my wardrobe.

Polka Dot Pants

Playing catch up here - I thought I should go back and document some of the other things I've made during the second half of this year when the blogging fell by the wayside.

The next on the list of un-blogged garments is a pair of flared pants in a polka dot denim.

I've needed a new pair of jeans for a while - the zipper is broken on my peacock jeans and the other two pairs of jeans that I've made the fabric is getting all stretched out (plus another zipper broken etc).

A contest over on pattern review was the incentive I needed to get around to making a new pair.

Fabric - The fabric is one that I picked up at a fabric swap some time ago and never got around to using.  It's a dark denim with spots of black flocked velvet all over.  I love this fabric!

Pattern - This is another iteration of my standard pants pattern - every time I take the latest pattern, tweak it slightly and still I've yet to get the fit right - this time was no exception  - there are a number of issues with these pants.

1.  The flare - I added a flared leg to these pants as it's my favourite silhouette - I like my pants to be fitted through the thigh to about the knee, but I hate anything tight around my calf, plus I feel like the flare at the bottom balances out the weight at the mid section a bit otherwise I just feel like I look like an apple with arms and legs sticking out of it.  However I was just guessing about how much flare to add to each piece and I got it wrong - the legs seem to twist a bit from the knee down, plus the knee is all crinkly....back to the drawing board on that one!

2. The bum - If I'm standing still the butt looks fine - though I made them a bit big so there is a bit of bagginess there -  The problem is that the moment I move the back slides down and I get a saggy bum - not a good look.  I have no idea what I need to do to stop this.....

3.  The buttons - Normally I avoid buttons simply because I find them a pain to do up and undo.  I decided to actually add buttons this time as it was a contest and I had chosen to enter the advanced level and thought I should do buttons - Whilst I love the look of the buttons, the really are a pain to do up and undo.

4.  The waistband - I can't decide if this is a good or a band point - I really love the extra wide waistband, but it does have a tendency to fold down at the front when I sit - I think this is just a result of the high waist and without lowering the waist there is nothing I can do about it - so I think I would do this waistband again - just with snaps next time and maybe some elastic around the top.

5.  The zipper - I did a full fly front zip on these - but of course, on the very first wear the stupid zipper broke - yes I could fix it, but I don't want to - so I went back and added snaps down the length of the zipper.  

There are also a number of features on these jeans that I really love - they were made for an Advanced technique contest so I went all out in the finishing of them.

First was the pockets -  The front slash pockets were finished using a cotton velvet fabric on the edges.  I love the way this looks with this fabric - Now if only I'd gotten the shape right so the pockets didn't gape!

The pocket bags were finished using French seams for a nice clean finish.

The back pockets are welt pockets with the welts made from the same velvet.

The pocket bags are all beautifully finished with a backing of the main fabric where the pocket opens.

The edges of the pockets are bound with the same pocket bag material (an old sheet that had a hole in it).  The top of the pocket bag is incorporated into the waistband seam to finish it.

I used this project to learn how to do a proper flat fell seam.  Usually I just use the faux flat fell seams where you sew the seam right sides together, the trim down one seam allowance, fold the other over and top stitch the seam allowance in place.  This time I did it properly.

Press the seam allowances in the opposite directions.  Here you can see the center back piece has the seam allowance pressed to the wrong side and the side back piece has the seam allowance pressed to the right side.

The two seam allowances are tucked inside each other.

Opening the seam out I basted the seam allowance on top of each other.

Then folded again on the creases.

I then did two rows of top stitching from the right side of the fabric, one along each of the edges.

I used this technique for the back seam shown here, the center back seam and the inseam.

The waistband was handstitched down before topstitching. With the rest of the pants top stitched the waistband looked a little weird without any, so after hand sewing the waistband I went back and did two rows of top stitching on the top and bottom of that as well.  Both layers of the waistband are interfaced with a heavy weight interfacing to provide as much structure as possible.

Overall these pants look beautiful in my closet, but not that great when on my body.  They are by no means terrible and they certainly get worn, but they have a number of annoying issues so I'd really like to try again!

More Calders

Not a lot to say about my latest sewing project  - I made another pair of the Cashmerette Calders.  I am loving these pants for lounging around the house - they look totally put together but are super comfortable and warm.

This pair are made from some really beautiful grey wool with a tiny black diamond pattern woven into it - It feels super luxurious, not at all scratchy, but definitely smells like wool when washed or ironed.  Despite how good it feels I still wanted the pants lined and chose some woven rayon which I love as a lining - plus I love the pop of colour inside.

The pattern I used is the modified version I created for my last pair with one more minor change - I do find the black pair are just a smidge hard to get over the hips so I increased the outer seam of the back pattern piece by about a half inch - and the back waistband the same.  So basically this pair are now almost a straight size 14 with 1.5" length removed in the rise and 1.5" off the length.

I hemmed this pair to be a bit longer than my last two pairs, which is nice around the house, but I took them out into the wild today (yes that's right I left my house for the first time in months) and they did drag on the beach a bit.

I do still have plans for another pair of these - I found some metallic flecked denim at the store the other day and thought that a pair of Calders would be fantastic....we shall see!

 

Cashmerette Calders

Last post I showed off my Cashmerette Calder Muslin.  I've been loving these pants for lounging around the house - but now I wanted a pair I could wear outside too.  

First I had to adjust my pattern. The muslin was a pretty good fit, but there is always room for improvement. My measurements at the time of making were:

Waist - 39"
High hip (around belly at front) - 44" 
Low hip (around bum) - 43". 

Based on the table below that puts me at a size 14 hip and between 18 and 20 waist.

For my muslin I ended up cutting 16 front and 12 back (for an average of 14 all around) and I felt like that was still a little baggy at the back, and the seams which are meant to be more towards the front were actually closer to my actual sides so I decided this time to reduce the front down to the 14 and leave the back at the 12.  

According to everything I should be grading out to a 18 or 20 around the waist, but with an elasticated waist I didn't feel like I really needed to - the waist just needed to be wide enough to go over my hips.  Despite the numbers saying it shouldn't work (the finished garment measurement for a size 14 at the waist is 41.5" stretched) I cut my waistband to a size 14 at the front and a size 12 at the back and it slides on fine.  My theory is that that 43 - 44" at my hips is squishy - not solid!  The best thing about this is that I don't have all that extra gathering at the back waist which is a look that I don't love. 

So my final pattern modifications were:

Back - Using the Apple back piece, I cut everything (including waistband) to a size 12 and removed 1.5" length between waist and crotch.  For my muslin I ended up taking a 6" hem so this time around I removed 3" from the bottom of the legs (since the legs are pretty much straight I didn't bother removing the length at the shorten lengthen line, just took it off the bottom).  I then also modified the back crotch curve making it more of an L shape based on my latest shorts pattern.  

Front - I trimmed the pattern back to a size 14 all around (including waistband), and took 1.5" out of the rise and 3" off the leg length. 

Now to figure out what fabric to use!

Last time I was at the fabric store I purchased a piece of fabric with the plan to use it for my next pair of pants.  It was on the wool remnants table for $2.99/yard.  It's a black twill fabric - bottom weight, not sure of the fabric content but a burn test showed signs of both poly and natural fibers so I'm guessing a poly wool blend of some sort.  after pre washing my fabric piece turned out to be about 1.75 yards of 60" wide fabric which would be fine for a pair of fitted pants, but now that I wanted to make Calders - Hmmm the pattern says 2 3/8 yards for a size 12- 22 pair of Calders in view A.  Could I do it?

Why yes I could - just.  I had to line things up very precisely and cut pieces upside down but since it's a plain black fabric I figured that wouldn't be a problem.  The only thing I had to do was add a seam down the back of the back waistband as I couldn't fit it on a fold.  I was quite impressed be my tetris skills.

After sewing this once before this was a really easy sew.  I did each seam on the sewing machine and finished on the overlocker/serger.  I did top stitch down the front and back crotch seams.  I find that is where my pants split most if they are likely to split at all so a bit of reinforcement is always good.

When I had attached one edge of my waistband to the pants, I pinned in a piece of elastic and tried them on.  As expected they are a bit scratchy.  I had bought a piece of poly cotton knit to use to line the fabric, but since that was only 45" wide there was no way there would be enough for a lining for my Calders so I went through the stash to see what else I could find.  I came up with two scraps - A pink and a brown and decided to use both up (not enough of either to use one or the other.)  I cut the front out of the brown and the back out of the pink.  I had to do one little patch job on the back of one leg to get it to fit.

Once I cut out my lining - as it was a knit fabric I then went around and cut about 1/4" off each seam just to give it a smidge of negative ease compared to the woven main fabric.  I also cut the length off 3".  I serged the pants lining together with a 1/2" seam allowance and then basted it, wrong sides together to the waistband. 

Then it was just a matter of finishing off my waistband - I didn't use the elastic lengths specified in the pattern just pinned the elastic in one side, tried them on pulled the elastic as tight as I wanted and pinned the other side.  I used three rows of stitching to hold the gathers to the elastic just because I think it looks nicer.  And then finally I turned the hem up 3/8" and then about 3/4" to give a nice long leg line.

I really love these Calders - I think they look fantastic, then feel super comfortable with the elastic waist and the knit lining - perfect for either lounging around the house - or heading out to dinner.  win win all round!

Sorry about the lack of good photos - my camera is playing up at the moment so this is the best I could get!

Flannel Lounge Suit

 This wasn't quite what I was expecting to make when I started my latest project - but you know what - I'll take it!  In fact I really like it!

This all started when I decided I wanted to try out one of Cashmerette's pants patterns.  I know they do an apple and pear pelvis fit and wanted to see for myself just what the differences were.  That gave me two choices - I could buy the Calders or the Ames Jeans.  I decided that in this day and age the elastic waisted relaxed fitted Calder's were probably going to get more wear than the more structured jeans so bit the bullet and bought the PDF version of the Calders.

The first thing I did was to import the two different patterns - the apple and the pear - into Inkscape so I could see where the differences were.  Basically, it turns out that it is just the back pattern piece that differs.  The pear pattern piece has the addition of the dart at the back, it has a longer back rise and and longer crotch extension.

So lets talk fruits.  When I hear apple and pear shape I think Apple - round body with thin legs and arms sticking out andPear - smaller upper body and larger hips/backside.  Then I take a look at myself in the mirror and go - yep I'm an apple I have a protruding belly, a protruding backside and protruding boobs - Basically a round ball in the middle with arms and legs sticking out.  So when I saw the pattern differences I was a bit confused - All the changes for the pear pattern are those that I regularly have to do to get my pants to fit.  I decided to go for it and cut out the pear pattern (I figured it was easier to get rid of extra fabric later than to try and add it back in).

Now to figure out which size.

The waist measurement is always the hardest for me to figure out.  It says to measure where you are narrowest.  For me that is directly underneath the bust - and for once the picture shows that point being used.  OK well then we will go with that. At the point shown on the figure above I'm 36".  That's size 16.  Now for hips.  I'm 43" standing and 46.5" sitting.  Size 12 pear? size 16 apple?  

I decided to just start with a straight size 16 and go from there.

I printed out my pattern with size 12, 14 and 16 printed ( I love the inclusion of layers on a PDF pattern) so that I could do modifications as required.  I used my daughters lightbox to tape all the pieces together without trimming - makes it so much faster.  The one thing that I was a bit disappointed about with this pattern was the large margins around each page. Each page has a 1" margin around it which results in 2" overlaps, which is an awful lot of wasted paper. 

I printed out both the apple and pear back pieces just so I could see in real life the differences (plus I was stupid and didn't read my instructions before printing and printed my main pattern without the grid shown so I wanted to make sure that that 2" overlap was really there).  Then I went and compared them to my last shorts pattern.  The front piece was actually a very close match.  The only real difference was an extra 3.5" rise in the Calders.  The back pattern piece was huge compared to my pattern  a good 6" wider around the back leg and 4.5" wider across the bum.  But my pattern was definitely closer in shape to the Pear than the Apple.

Now I had to find some fabric to use.  Normally when I make a pair of pants I can get them cut out of 2 yards of fabric - so when I buy bottom weight fabric I usually only buy 2 yard cuts.  So the only thing I had in stash that was big enough was denim and I did not want to use that for these pants.....but then I saw this blue and black checked flannel - I'd bought 4 yards of this so I would definitely have enough.  OK so they probably wouldn't be outside pants, but I could do with some more pajama pants - and that would work nicely for a wearable muslin.

I cut the pattern out at a straight size 16 pear and basted it all together.  Wow there was a lot of fabric there.  I loved the way they looked from the front, but the back view was not good.  Plus as expected the rise was just really too high - They were sitting right up under my boobs.  I know that the pattern is designed to be high waisted but it was too high for me.   I pinned out 1.5" and that was better, but I think that for next time I'll take out a full 2"  (which happens to correspond to the 2" I took out of the length of the Cashmerette Harrison shirt I made).  

I then tried taking a good inch out of the width of the back panels - basically cutting the pattern back to a size 12 at the back side and that was better.  I then removed the dart from the back - this was less about fitting than about the look - the dart was just really badly aligned with the checks and it make the back look messy so I removed the darts and took some extra off the side seams to account for it. 

The final modification I made was to take a horizontal dart across the back to pull the checks up to a horizontal line across my backside......so basically what I did was take it back to a size 14  (average of 16 front and 12 back) with an apple back.  OK well now I know for next time!  Though I think they are still a bit too big so next time I think I'll go for a 14 front and grade from 14 at the waist to 12 down the hips and legs with the apple backside.

I trimmed off all my extra fabric, took my basted together pants apart and  then put them together properly following both the instruction booklet and the sew along from the website.  I found later that I had made one mistake when sewing the front crotch seam so the center check didn't quite align with the waistband, but I'd flat felled those front seams for extra strength and wasn't about to try and fix it now.  Otherwise I'd done a pretty good job of matching the checks I was quite happy with the result.

For the final hem I turned the bottom of the legs up a full check width, and then turned it up again,  and then a third time to get the right length - so next time I can probably cut a good 3-4" off the bottom.

So now I had a really cool pair of pants but nothing to wear with them.  You really need either something tucked in or something cropped to show off the top of the pants which is the best part - otherwise they just look baggy and a bit daggy.  

I still had some of my fabric left over so I decided to go ahead and make a top to go with it.  I used the pattern that I created this summer for the gathered neckline top, but wanted to remove the gathering as I wasn't sure how that would go in the flannel fabric.  I simply angled the front neckline out to meet the collar of the shirt.  I think I left about 1/4" too much length in that front slit which makes the front neck buckle just slightly but I'm not going to worry about it now!

I extended the sleeves to full length making then straight for a more flared look to go with the flare of the pants, cut if off straight across at waist height and removed the flare from the under bust area down so that it sits snuggly around the waist.

I love the way both of these pieces turned out and have been wearing them since I got them finished. Its a great outfit for just relaxing around the house - gee do I do much of that at the moment???