Dash for the Deadline

The end of January is fast approaching (hooray - pay day!) and the first Jungle January is drawing to a close. In a last ditch attempt to 'move' into animal prints I online purchased a rather cheap poly chiffon that incorporates, zebra, snake, cheetah, tiger, leopard, spots and a few fleur-de-ly for good measure.  I think the postage was more expensive than the fabric!

The pattern is a mis-mash of a very easy Vogue shirt and Rachel Comey V1247: there is a back yoke, back pleat, kimono sleeves, a few darts in the front for shaping, shirt tail hem with the back longer than the front, 3/4 sleeves and bias bound V neck. - There, a bit of everything to match the fabric.

Didn't take too long to make either as there is no fitting, no sleeve insertion and the hem is just rolled and machine sewn.

More importantly to me are the jeans.
They are Issey Miyake Vogue 1204, not quite skinny but straight legged with front slant pockets and all the usual jean accoutrement. An unusual departure in style for me but I thought I'd give them a go. I normally make boot cut style jeans to balance out the child-bearing hips and I was rather concerned about the front slant pockets bulging out when I sat down. I made them long enough to cover the tops of the snakeskin ankle boots - but short enough so that you can see the boots.

There are a staggering 12 pieces sewn together to make these jeans, including pocket linings and double of everything apart from the left and right fly - 22 bits plus 5 belt carriers. I think that's a lot of pieces for two legs and a waistband.

Fabric is a stretch denim that was brown until it was washed and then became olive green. That's OK, I've got lots of things that co-ordinate with them - not least the animal chiffon!

Most of the fears of the style were unfounded. However, these jeans are LOW, especially in comparison to my usual fit.

I did my own unique method of achieving the perfect fit in jeans - it goes like this in 10 easy steps:

1. Cut out a 14
2. Make the fronts and backs with all the pockets and fly
3. Sew up the inside legs as real
4. Stitch the outside legs and centre back with 5mm machine baste stitch
5. Try on inside out and pin out all the excess on the outside legs and centre, especially at the waist.
6. Rip out the basting and stitch on the pin lines.
7. Try on again and pin out any new wrinkles and bagginess
8. Rip and stitch.
9. Fit the waistband to the new size.
10. Attach a button and hem

Works every time!
But that's the problem... I never adjust the paper pattern to take account of these changes so every time I make a pair, I have to go through the whole rigmarole again. However, I have also found that even with a pattern I have adjusted and altered the fit still needs tweaking with every new fabric used. One stretch denim does not behave the same as another stretch denim.












Money shot coming up.......

There, I've tried animal print twice this month and I'll have to admit - it's not for me. I will be wearing my animal print lined dress at a very important meeting this week and if I can muster the courage I might just accessorise with the matching scarf.

Anne, it's been fun and you've made me go where no other sewer or designer has enticed me to go before. A big thank you for hosting and managing Jungle January; hunting down and displaying all those animal print inspired garments - Meow to you!

For me, it's time to go back to SWAP.

Not Brown or Black....

Look what's hanging over my bannister - gently stretching and gravity doing her work easing out crinkles and folds.

It's not black or brown or grey, not red (Tia) or pink but stone! Yeah, yeah, I know... but I got a full Italian leather hide for way less than half price on ebay. How could I resist? You're all on my side on this aren't you?

I'm not too sure what the "Italian" means, presumably from Italy - does that make it good? I don't know. I'm trying to learn all about leather. There are some holes in the hide but that's natural and work-aroundable. It is a little thicker than I have been reading about. This is 1.1mm thick while all the books say 0.6-0.9mm is best but I figured what's 0.2mm between seams? That's so small a measurement that inches don't go down that far! This one piece is 48sq feet - absolutely massive.

Teenage son was appalled - he even asked if it was legal and tried to figure out the ass end from the head end! God bless his innocent little heart.

Comision-free, let me direct you to Leather Hides. UK based and Anthony provided the best response, personal attention and fastest delivery known to man. Thank you Antony.

It does cry out 'jacket' please, but I'm sticking my guns on this and I'll use this as a genuine 'muslin' for the black or brown or grey or red leather pants (the leather which will be purchased from Antony). I should have some left over and am thinking of bag or waistcoat (vest). but let's just get the main attraction done first though.

While the pleather pants were a good test of one-chance sewing, this will really tax the technical sewing side.

Some thought is needed before sewing this beast into a tamed pair of pants.
Some courage is also needed before attacking with scissors.

There is the most wonderful smell of leather wafting though our house this evening.

Jeans

There hasn't been too much happening in the sewing room this week, so I thought I'd show you some of the jeans I've been cranking out over the summer and never really blogged about and present you with a dilemma over my proposed leather trousers/pants. Read on

I took Kenneth D King's Jeanius online course earlier this year; I managed to snag it at a bargain price. You can buy access from all sorts of sites, I got mine via Craftsy.

It is a rub off method for copying your favourite pair of RTW jeans. The process of actually getting the pattern, while involved, taught me lots about pattern drafting and I even bought new tools and gadgets to make the job easier. Once the pattern is drafted it is ready to use. I have made four pairs of jeans from the one pattern - each pair a little different from the last but the fit is getting better and better every time. It is interesting to see how different fabrics, especially those with a bit stretch, sew up differently from each other so there's always a bit of tweaking involved somewhere along the line.

I can sew the crotch area without worry. I've almost mastered the fly zip. Topstitching is still a bit wobbly and back pocket placement is somewhat random..... but I'm getting there.

No. 1
A very non-stretch creamy moleskin type of fabric. Lots of faults but making these highlighted what areas need to be adjusted.

No. 2 Grey denim with a slight stretch. I wear this pair A LOT. Here they are hanging on the washing line alongside teenage son's.

No. 3 The fabric is the unbleached cotton twill from Raystitch purchased ages ago and I finally got round to putting it to good use. The jeans are a little 'heavy' - good for autumn/winter wearing though. When I'm not in the grey jeans I'm in these.

No 4 Finally and most recently the pleather pair. With these I straightened the legs and are my muslin for the real leather pair that I shall make one day when the world is perfect.

I've done a bit of serious research about leather this week and have found out this -
Garment weight leather comes in thicknesses of 0.6-0.9mm. Any thinner and it may tear, heavier thicknesses ( 1.2 - 1.5 cm) are used for biker jackets and really thick hides are used for shoes.

Leather is sold in hides by the square foot. There is a fairly simple calculation to convert yards/metres to sq ft. which means you can in theory make any pattern in leather. This is taken from Vogue Sewing Book, page 359 - the answer to my query was on my bookshelves all along! There are 13 sq ft to one yard of 150cm wide fabric. I need 1.8m or 2 metres to make life easy of fabric for these jeans

Metres = 2
multiply by 13 = 26

Multiply 26 by 0.15 for piecing allowance = 3.9. Even go to 0.2 to be on the safe side

26 + 3.9 = 29.9

So I need to acquire 30 sq ft of leather at 0.6- - 0.9mm thick for a pair of leather jeans.

Seems simple enough and so I went trawling the net for UK suppliers of leather hides almost ready to buy a traditional black or dark brown and this is when the next dilemma occurred. There is just too much choice! All the colours of the rainbow; pigskin, goatskin, calfskin, cowskin; leather, nappa, suede; smooth finish, mottled finish, embossed finished, metallic, patent and on and on.

So opinions please.... plain black or brown or a colour?

I'll get more wear from a neutral colour but I am tempted.....

Thanks to all of you who offered advice, hints and showcased your own leather sewing projects in the last post. As always, I appreciate your expertise and encouragement.

I've also just noticed, when the photos of jeans construction are placed in chronological order my hair gets shorter and shorter!

Best Ever Boyfriend

The next pair of jeans were a combination of all that's been learned so far: crotch fitting, leg width, facings and waistband, pockets and the properties of denim.  I managed to acquire some selvedge denim, not easy and not cheap, for this pair. Made on 36" wide weaving looms the selvedge edge has a smooth finish with a little red stripe that marks it out as being special. Selvedge jeans are some of the most expensive RTW because the fabric is so narrow, you need at least 3 yards and there is a lot of wastage in commercial terms. 

The word selvedge comes from"self-edge", the natural edge of a roll of fabric. The looms weave fabric with one continuous cross thread (the weft) that is passed back and forth all the way down the length of the bolt. As the weft loops back into the edge of the cloth it creates this “self-edge” or selvedge. The selvedge does not fray like cloth made on a modern, projectile loom that has separate wefts, that leave an open edge. Selvedge denim is made on old-style shuttle looms that are limited to 31" - 36" wide.  During the weaving process, the weft shuttle goes back and forth as one continuous thread, rather than as individual threads. As a result, selvedge denim has a clean edge. Modern, single thread weaving has a frayed edge.  The selvedge edge is usually stitched with a coloured thread. 

My denim is 14oz weight, which is quite heavy and stiff, even after three hot washes. I chalked up the pieces just to make sure I had enough to do. I bought 3 yds and the only thing you have to straighten are the outside legs along the selvedge -then you don't have to finish the outside seam later.          

It's de rigour darling to fold up the hemline to show off that selvedge while wearing.

Top stitching on the back pockets, yoke and just partly down the outside seams to hold them all together while under pressure of wearing.

The inside facings were made of the scrap from the Stepford top.

I put some rivets in too. I love using tools for dressmaking: you need a hammer and an awl and it's a wee bit scary because you're putting holes in a finished garment!

OK -  the money shots!

And you know, looking back over this mini adventure in jeans construction I'm not really sure this style is for me. I like tight, boot-cut / flared type jeans. I think they make legs look longer and the flare at the hem balances out the flare at the hips (if you know what I mean?). So I signed up for Craftsy's Jean-ius lessons with Kenneth D King. This is reverse engineering - or in technical terms a rub-off - from an existing garment to get a pattern. I happen to have a pair of Armani jeans that I'm going to try and replicate but you need tools for this project and I don't have any. So I'm off to buy the pattern drafting bits and pieces and then we'll see..........

Thanks for reading. Ruth

New - Old Jeans

Having completed one pair of jeans with relative success, I moved almost directly on to a second pair but this time using my own perfect bum pattern pieces (relaxed fit style) and matching the legs of a pair of wide legged Marc Cain RTW.

I've included here some stages that I had left out of the denim series of posts that you may want to consider if making jeans for the first time.

I have ONE very basic Janome sewing machine and NO overlocker (serger), so when I need to do topstitching in a contrast thread I have to re-thread the machine. Therefore, I try to ergonomically design my sewing of jeans so that I can do a lot of topstitching at once. This method also helps with the construction as all the bits are ready to go when needed.

With jeans there are loads of 'bits': pockets, front back and money, belt carriers and fly.  I also discovered during this oddessy of jean making that proper top-stitching thread is actually tan-brown, not yellow or gold as I had previously thought. When it lies next to the denim it lightens and just 'looks' yellow - or is it just my eyes?

This time I did use a brightly coloured  patterned cotton for the pocket linings, fly shield and waistband - cerise pink, royal blue and gold paisley pattern with roses.





















Back pockets have to be topstitched before sewing them to the backs. To achieve almost perfect symmetry on both pockets, I traced my design on bog standard tracing paper and placed this on top of the pocket pieces (greaseproof paper would work well too). Then just sew over the paper following your design lines as closely as possible. The paper just peels away afterwards as you have perforated it with the needle.

 The back side with topstitched pockets attached. They're not perfect and I don't do symmetrical very well but these little nuances prove they're hand made and not churned out by a computerised, automated machine.

I also added a little tab on the left pocket to hint at the colour on the inside.

The money pocket

 Teenage son is now well over 6' tall (2m) and that's why it looks like you're looking down at me - it's his point of view we're experiencing here.


Un-hemmed jeans from the back and side - the legs are really quite loose and wide on this pair but  they are incredibly comfortable.

Worn with another kimono wrap cardigan (unblogged); this time in a fine red wool. I threaded the ties through the belt loops.

BUT.... These jeans reminded me of sensible mummy jeans and I don't want to go there just yet. I think it was the darkness of the denim - too conservative or something - I've also lost my waist somewhere in amongst that 'relaxed' fit  - it was hard to put my finger on it - there was something just not right.

So I got these.......

and did this........

 ...... and a 12 hour soak in the bath with a mild bleach solution;

........a polish with some sandpaper at the pocket edges and along the seams - and ended up with these:









Rather uneven faded jeans, but I think, better than before. Certainly softer and not quite so sensible looking. Good for running around the house and garden in and it doesn't matter if they get dirty or scuffed up - a working pair of jeans is what these are (though I'll take the Hermes off when power hosing the paving!)

Don't be fooled by that sunshine - it was freezing!

Thanks for reading. Ruth

Not Boyfriend's - MINE

At long last - the finished Boyfriend jeans.

And the sun came out to welcome them and I wore my new red shoes.

I think I changed the fitting so much at the crotch and inside leg that they no longer resemble a boyfriend style but are a just a pair of jeans.

 The eagle-eyed among you will notice the bias cut yoke pieces to make the most of the pinstripe denim. I topstitched in blue thread as I thought there was enough going on with the stripes and a contrast thread would be too much

You won't often see a photo of me from this direction!

 Coin pocket was cut on the cross grain for horizontal lines for added visual interest.

What's better in life than a white shirt and a pair of jeans?

The legs of these jeans are just great as they taper slightly towards the ankles so that when you fold up a cuff there's no gathering of fabric.

I hope you have enjoyed this little mini-series about jeans and found some of it useful. I'm in a jeans mood now and plan to crank 'em out over the next few weeks. I have one more post about the order of construction that is based on Sandra Bettizna's method that is so much better that Hot Patterns instructions and makes that final fitting so much easier too.  With all these jeans planned I'm also starting to think about tops to wear with them so I'll try to mainatain your interest with more than just jeans.

Thanks for reading. Ruth