This is one of those Very Exciting Makes. You know the ones you’re extra proud of? Often they took extra time or used special fabric or were for a particular occasion. These are the first jeans I’ve made, and sneakily I decided to make them for my sister so I wasn’t forced to deal with them if they didn’t fit. Spoiler alert, they did!
I did a class with Maryanne at Made on Marion, called something like ‘copying a ready-to-wear garment’. I could probably have found enough online to work out how to do it, but WOULD I have? Probably not. It was great to block out a whole day to get it done.
There were four of us, each copying a completely different garment. I used some worn-out jeans of my sister’s, and it was interesting to see how three-dimensional the pieces had become, as they’d moulded to the shape of her body. I did my best, but probably most importantly, I sewed it up in a mystery denim with a fair bit of stretch.
I used the Ginger jeans pattern for the construction, and it was fascinating to see how much work is in a pair of jeans. It’s pretty worrying that they can be sold at such a low price. I threaded the Lotus with topstitching thread, but she didn’t like all the layers for the bar-tacks, so I ended up doing those on the Bernina. There were two things I wasn’t really happy with: firstly, it’s hard to work out pocket placement without the intended owner around to model them. Secondly, I don’t think I did the rivets right. They were supposed to just click into place (no hammering needed), but maybe mine were too long, or my denim was too thin? There was a lot of empty space and they stick out a bit. Admittedly I’m probably the only one who’ll notice.
It was really fun to see them start to look like proper jeans! And you already know this, but they fit pretty well. I’m keen to try them again in a denim with a bit less stretch, to see how that works.
sixty six stitches 