Unnecessary Jeggings

Or, Thing You Can Sew During Naptime

I haven’t been able to do much naptime sewing lately, but I managed a wee bit today, and for some reason, I made the twins jeggings.

I mean, I like jeggings. They have a couple of RTW pairs that that are getting pretty janky and are also nine month size (and the twins, while fairly shrimpy, are getting a bit tall for that at almost 21 months)

But they also have eighty million other pants and we’re fast approaching shorts season.

Anyway, as jeggings go these ones are pretty minimal—no pockets or back yoke or anything. I started with the same basic Jalie leggings pattern (2920), in the F size (size 2), which I’ve used for other leggings for them in the past. The only changes I made were to add a fly extension at the front crotch, to support the mock-fly topstitching, and to add about 1” of length and a bit of width to the bottom of the leg, for a more “pants” and less “leggings” fit.

The fabric is this glorious heavy “denim” knit I bought a ridiculous amount of back when I worked at Fabricland, and I wouldn’t mind making myself another pair of jeggings from it if I can motivate myself.

I did the topstitching again using the triple straight stitch on my vintage Elna, which is both ridiculously fast and better looking than the same stitch on my Janome, although it’s a little hit or miss. Since I was working with 1/4” seam allowances and the only way to topstitch the inseam on leggings is to sew up the inside of the tube, which is always a bit tricky, I opted for a single row of topstitching everywhere except the “fly”, and I’m pretty happy with that choice. (Also, a lot faster)

Anyway, they fit fairly “loosely” as leggings go, and there’s plenty of length, so even if they don’t get much wear over the summer I’m sure they will still fit come fall.

Oversized Sweaters

Long, long time readers may recall my husband’s enthusiasm for a simple white sweatshirt. If not, you can read up on it starting here. Anyway, it was probably inevitable that I would make some for the twins at some point.

In any case, this small chunk (not quite 1m) of just-slightly-off-white sweatshirt fleece presented itself to me a while back, but it took me a while to settle on a pattern. My vintage baby pattern is still MIA, Jalie 3355 only goes down to a 2T size, and my other option, a cute raglan sweater pattern from the 80s, the “size 1” was already bigger than the Jalie size 2. So Jalie it was.

There isn’t much to say about a sweatshirt beyond that. I did reverse-coverstitch the little V at the neck. I had a bit of agony over the choice of ribbing, since the just-barely-off-white fabric is right in between the colours of my white and ivory ribbing. I went with white, and I’m glad I did—in the never-quite-adequate light of my basement sewing area the colours are barely distinguishable, but upstairs in what passes for daylight the white is definitely better.

I very nearly added some Mickey Mouse appliqués Syo gave the twins for Christmas, but the packaging warned they weren’t washable so I may save them for a bag or a jacket or something.

They are a little huge, which hopefully means they’ll still fit next fall. This hasn’t stopped my husband and the older girls from stuffing the twins into them at every opportunity, so the laundry stain remover is getting a workout, but that was inevitable as we persist in the folly of putting white clothes on toddlers. I wish I had “better” photos, but here in toddler land I fear this is as good as it gets.

Chaos Tank

That post title could be describing this make or my whole house right now. Did I mention the twins are walking now? How about climbing? How about getting into absolutely freaking EVERYTHING. Something new every day. You know how people talk about battles with raccoons, where each new layer of security buys at most a few days of peace… like that.

Anyway, it’s been harder to sew since they can now climb over the fabric bins I’ve been using to barricade off my sewing room from their play space, especially since their favourite thing to do for a while has been climb around underneath the ironing board. Although today they mostly abandoned that in favour of pulling out the drawers of my sewing desk.

But anyway, enough whining. With a bit of determination (and intermittent help from Tyo) I got a wee bit of sewing done today. I managed to squeak out a Jalie 3245 tank top from a remnant of rayon jersey that has been kicking around driving me nuts for a while.

It’s a piece I got from a deadstock batch at Fabricland several years ago, in that smudgy greenish kind of tie-dye I love so much. I got the last of the bolt, just over 1.5m, I believe, and I figured there would be JUST enough to squeak out a Jalie 3247 maxi dress if I added a back seam. Unfortunately for me, about two years ago Syo was puttering around (and I love that she occasionally WANTS to sew so I can’t be too mad) and cut herself a shirt out of this fabric. Maxi dreams crushed, the remnant has been haunting me ever since.

My size has changed a wee bit since I last made this tank, but this fabric has lots of stretch so I wasn’t too worried about the bust (and no way I was taking time to trace out a new version). I did add some flare to the waist and hip, and at the CB below the waist since I had to add a back seam to fit the pattern on my remnant. I may have actually made it a bit too swingy, if that’s possible.

The last couple of neckbands I have made turned out a little floppy, so I attempted to make the bands for this more snug and went a little too far in the other direction. Fortunately the coverstitch topstitching MOSTLY controlled the attempt of the neckline to gather up, at least for the moment, but we’ll see where we end up. I did better at the topstitching than I have in the past, at least!

There’s not much to say otherwise. I did all the seaming on my serger and the topstitching and hemming on my coverstitch. This is a profoundly unseasonal make since winter here arrived with a bang today, dropping nearly a foot of snow since this morning. BUT, I’m trying to work through the piles of junk cluttering up my sewing room, since I don’t seem to be able to muster the time or energy to tackle the kind of large and cozy projects that would be appropriate for this time of year.

Oh, and I’m wearing it over a Jalie Julia bralette that I cut out ages ago and stuffed in a project bag, and finally pulled out and finished. (See above about working through piles of junk) The straps are the (almost) perfect match for the tank’s racer back. Anyway, I hope your life has a little less chaos in it than mine right now (but hopefully just as much cuteness because whining aside, they’re so much fun at this age), and that your weather is a little nicer than ours!

Euphoria

My birthday, as you probably won’t recall, falls only a week after the twins’. I’m pretty resigned to it being permanently eclipsed now that they’re around, but this year was a bit of a bigger one: 40.

I could probably muse about what it means to have ended another decade, or the approach of middle age; about body changes and how they interact with fashion trends to affect your style. I could even say something about the fact that this blog was only a few months old when I turned 30.

But instead, I’m going to celebrate my birthday present. After years of wistful wishing, intermittent planning always aborted by some more pressing expense, I walked downstairs yesterday morning to a comically large box on the dining room table.

My husband (abetted by my children, my mother, and at least one sewing friend), had pulled the trigger I have never been able to, and bought me a coverstitch.

And because he’s him, it wasn’t the baseline model I had generally planned on. The Babylock Euphoria has all the bells and whistles, including air jet threading for the looper and a harp space big enough for a quilt, should you decide to coverstitch your quilting.

I can’t even wrap my head around it, to be honest. But it’s there, begging to be used. There’s about a million accessories that I need to buy (all the binding attachments, for a start)… and I’m back at work so my time is even more limited… but it’s here!

For my first project, I picked a design I’ve been musing about for months as a nursing-friendly topper. I used my trusty knit sloper and drafted the crossover and flare right on the fabric.

It’s cute, casual enough to wear working from home but spiffy enough for when I’m in the office, and best of all, it has miles of hem for testing out the coverstitcher.

Because this was self-drafted very much on the fly, there wasn’t really any testing of where the crossover would fall; I kinda feel like an inch or so higher or lower might have been better, but I’m not hating it. My bust point fell abruptly by at least an inch on August 31 last year (the day the twins were born) so my sense of where certain points on the pattern fall is a bit inaccurate these days. At least it still mostly fits.

I’m very happy with the width of the flare and the flutteriness I ended up with though.

I need to slow down and build a bit more precision with the thing, but as time poor as I am right now that’s maybe not going to happen. On the whole, though, it makes the whole hemming process much faster. I haven’t even needed to use a fusible so far.

In desperate need of pressing!

The weather turned sharply nasty in time for my birthday, and we realized that the twins had outgrown most of their clothes during the last month while they were wearing mostly diapers (with occasional cute dresses). So tonight I spent some time cutting out some little pants and sweaters. Of course the first ones I went to sew up aren’t terribly warm, but those will come, I promise. These are cut from Jalie 2920, the classic leggings pattern, in the smallest size, which is a kids’ size 2. Technically far to big, but smaller than the baby sweatpants pattern I was also testing out so I thought I’d give them a try. This shiny polyester doesn’t have a huge amount of stretch so they actually work as loose-ish pants right now. I don’t think it’ll hold up, but it’s pretty and the fabric was a hand-me-down I’m unlikely to use for anything else. I actually had to turn the tensions (both upper and looper) down fairly dramatically on the coverstitch for this fabric, which was another lesson learned. I’m thinking matching dresses…

And more to come!

Clara-fication

The other day a very sweet local sewing friend came over to visit, eat scones, and hold babies. And instead of spending that time doing something useful, like packing away the hand-me downs I sorted and spread all over the dining room table last week, I went down to the sewing room and finished off my in-progress Jalie Clara leggings.*

I bought this fabric back in September, as a treat for myself for having to take time away from being at the hospital to sort out some government paperwork with regards to my parental leave (it helps that the Fabricland is right next door to the Service Canada office). It’s a stretchy fleece with a smooth side printed like bits of denim, and they were crying out to be some kind of jegging. Perhaps a more literal jegging might have been better, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen with my situation this fall, so instead I opted for the Jalie Clara leggings, with the seamless front that’s so good for showing off prints. I actually managed to trace off the pattern, cut them out, and sew up the main pieces back in November when my bestie came to visit for a few days, but when I went to try them on, I had a rude awakening.

I’ll blame my oversight on my sleep deprived state, but I hadn’t actually managed to compare the stretch of my fleece with the stretch of the pattern. And while there is almost enough widthwise stretch (enough, given that I was making a larger size anyway), the fleece has almost no lengthwise stretch. Oops. Even though I traced the no-yoke version of Clara (for simplicity) and added my usual height in the back, and Clara is meant to be high waisted, it was decidedly low rise. (I also added a whack of length to the leg and angled the back crotch seam in a bit more. These are my usual Jalie pants adjustments.)

Fortunately, this could be fixed by adding a yoke at the top, but at the time I was stymied. So today I cut a new yoke, added it on (should’ve made it wider, perhaps) and then added a nice wide exposed waistband elastic on top of that. The result sits more or less where I wanted it, which is high. Really high. Grandpa high. A little more height in the back wouldn’t have hurt, but it will do.

I’m not convinced it looks good, but it feels pretty good. And not like I need to hike them up every five seconds like every other pair of pants I currently can fit.

It’s a pretty modest success, but they’re done, with a few months of wear left before the weather gets too warm, and I’m pretty excited to have something other than the two pairs of jeans and assortment of ratty leggings I’ve been living in.

*after spending an hour or so digging out the ironing board and machines, and then having to find a chair.

Class samples: Jalie Tee

I wanted to teach a basic tee shirt class this summer, and Jalie seemed the obvious choice. Their basic fitted tee pattern, 2805, has a few different cute necklines (even if none is the scoop neck I prefer), and I felt pretty confident that the sizing and drafting would be good. I’m not sure if this sweet floral is really “me,” but it makes for a beautiful sample.

Everything is taking me a really long time to make right now, but this was still a pretty simple, quick sew, aside from how spread out over days the process was. I often just wing my neckband pieces, but I used the Jalie pattern piece here and of course it’s perfect. Neckbands on V-necks need to be a bit more precise, IMO, so a good pattern piece is worth it here.

Speaking of V necks, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

The one thing I would change on the pattern is that the sleeve pattern piece is cut on the fold. I prefer a full sleeve piece, even if it’s symmetrical, so I can cut out the pair all at once (I feel the same way about collar and yoke pieces for shirts). But it’s easy to make that change at the tracing stage.

I did not raise the underarm on this version, as I often don’t need to in Jalie patterns, but I think I would lift it just slightly in the future. There’s a balance in underarm fitting between mobility and wrinkles, but I tend to lean to the mobility side, wrinkles be damned.

I did the twin needling on the Rocketeer, where I had to relearn the “always test!” lesson again… for only the millionth time. Ah well. After some unpicking and careful testing of stitch length (longer), presser foot pressure (light but not too light or the fabric doesn’t advance well), and tension, I finally got good results. And yes, I used Steam-a-Seam in the hems.

Now does the shirt fit me? Well, I made my current size, which is U grading to V at the waist and hips. And it’s good, or would be good if the bump weren’t bursting forth at a rate that makes me think of those supernatural movie pregnancies where the woman gives birth within the space of days.

But I can definitely do a maternity bump hack on the next one.

Happy sewing!

Class Samples: Underwear!

I’ve wanted to do an underwear class for quite a while. It’s one of my favourite things to make, it’s fast, the materials are minimal, but there are lots of little helpful techniques that can be hard to pick up on your own.

Picking a pattern, though, was harder than I thought. My go-to is the Watson Bikini by Cloth Habit, but a) it’s only available as a PDF, and b) while I love the bikini style, I wanted a pattern with other options. And I didn’t want to do the bralet!) There are lots of free underwear patterns out there, as well, but again PDFs are awkward for teaching—they can’t be easily sold by the store, but more than that, half the class can end up being about “how to assemble a pdf pattern”—which might be a class in its own right but isn’t what I want to spend time on when we only have 3 hours. And most of them have limited sizing and styles.

Finally, I decided to go for an oldie I’ve been curious about for a while, Jalie 2568. This has five different styles and the usual Jalie wide range of sizes. I don’t know if anyone these days still wants matching mommy ‘n me underwear (like my grandma used to make for my mother and I for Christmas every year) but I think it’s an adorable idea, anyway.

And with the range of styles (basically high cut and hipster cut with both high and low rise options for each. We won’t go over the tanga pantie view if I can avoid it), I’m hopeful everyone will at least have something in their ballpark.

The camisole is cute, too, although I don’t love how it’s drafted specifically for the wide lace at the front neck. I do like how they use the same techniques for finishing the cami as for the underwear, at least from a teaching perspective.

My one disappointment from a construction perspective is that they’re single crotch seam underwear. While I do like this look, I prefer the sewing and finishing of an enclosed crotch. Not that it’s hard to convert one style into the other, of course.

The pattern suggests a simple hemmed option for the hipster cut, so I did try that out, but I’m dubious about its merit. My kids have a few RTW undies with a similar finish (cover stitched) but I fear that a) a coverstitch stitch is stretchier than a twin needle, and b) even the RTW versions basically wedge up your butt instantly.

For myself, I will not be remaking the high-waisted version, but I might give the hipster cut another try. I will probably lower the CF about an inch (which I usually do the Jalie pants, too). I should do a no-seam-allowance version to try the FOE, too.

If I ever get done these class samples!

Pretty Bella

Jalie Bella in Red

While I was in the mood for fit ‘n flare scoop necked dresses (and still well under my November project budget), I took the opportunity to try out the Jalie Bella dress in a textured doubleknit-type fabric that has been screaming  “Bella!” at me since it first arrived in the store back in September.

(A real downside of working at a fabric store is you spend a lot more time petting the fabric at the store than you do at home petting your stash, which gives you plenty of opportunity to fall in love with Shiny New Fabric.)

Jaie 3460 – Bella

I got this pattern in a glorious Jalie binge back in (?) June after it first came out, and have been excited about it ever since. Gillian’s version didn’t help a bit, despite her having some reservations about the pattern.

As Gillian said, the 60% horizontal stretch the pattern calls for is a lot once you step outside the world of dance wear Lycra, and my fabric, while having great recovery (also a must for this pattern), only just barely had it. I should probably have upsized a bit. I did not, and it’s fine, but the seams are definitely under some pressure. I hate to complain about 1/4″ seam allowances under any circumstances, but they don’t give you much leeway for letting a thing out. 

Back view. Wrinkles are mostly from how I’m standing.

Like Gillian, I used the curved scoop from the back on the front as well. I did actually trace out the slightly-different front and back pieces (since I wanted to add a swayback adjustment), and just added the front scoop to the back, so I have scoops in both directions—which is probably why it’s slipping off my shoulders a bit and showing some bra-strap. My bad. 😉

Bella sleeve and my sloper

One thing I loved, when I went to lengthen the sleeve, was how close the Jalie sleeve draft is to my knit sloper. (Although it is a symmetrical sleeve, unlike my sloper; it works ok in a stretchy knit.) The pattern itself has a half-sleeve, to be cut on the fold; I mirrored the pattern to a full sleeve when I traced it, mostly so I didn’t have to cut it out twice. I added about 2.5″ of length to the sleeves to get the slouchy-over-the-hand look that I covet so much, but really a single additional inch would probably have been adequate. (If you haven’t noticed, a lifetime of too-short sleeves has left me traumatized—I prefer my sleeves to come down to the fold of my thumb.)

Fun flared skirt!

One thing I didn’t notice from all the photos I’ve seen was that the very-full skirt actually skims the hips quite closely before flaring out right around butt-level. Not a bad thing (actually, I love it), just something I didn’t pick up on before.

Neckline closeup.

For the neckline, I used just a cross-grain strip stitched to the outside, folded to the inside, and topstitched with a twin needle. Then I trim of the excess from the inside. My twin needle lasted through topstitching the neckline and the sleeve hems, but died less than 1/8 of the way around the skirt and I was way too lazy to thread up my Rocketeer, so I used a triple-stitch zigzag on the skirt hem. It’s so nice to have that stitch again.

Twirl!

In honour of the Better Pictures Project (and the full, full skirt) I tried to get some twirling shots. Um. Well, points for trying?

All in all, though, I’m pretty happy. It’s a nice, beefy fabric that handles the shape well. The colour is ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. And it’s a great basic dress that will be fun to layer up for winter (I’m wearing it with one of Tyo’s little vests right now and she may not get it back.)

Happy.

What I didn’t get photos of is the part right after I finished it, where Syo demanded a dress just like it and then I had her try it on and it basically fit except for the long sleeves and then Tyo tried it on too and demanded a shirt from the leftovers.

So, yeah. Jalie patterns. Betcha can’t make just one. 😉

Besides, I might still need to make a red velvet version…. >_<

Maxi Mania

Jalie 3246

Maybe it was Carolyn’s recent binge on maxi dresses, or maybe it was that EVERY stylish lady in my office (and frankly, I think that’s all of the ladies in my office) has been wearing one at least three days a week for the last month, but I finally made time to make up Jalie 3245.

Jalie 3246

I meant to make this up last summer, but time slipped by me, as it often does.

The Black Version

As with most Jalie patterns, once you make one, it’s hard to stop. I made the first once in about two hours on a Saturday morning before I had to go to work, and that includes tracing out the pattern. I made it from a fairly heavy black knit (a doubleknit, I think) with a crep-like texture on one side—it’s got great drape and more stretch than a ponte, but is still a fairly firm and potentially sweaty fabric. Maybe not the best choice for a summer dress.

Front, black.

But it sure looks classy. I made this one up pretty much exactly as per pattern, only grading form size R at the bust to S at the waist and hips and adding a bit of length on the bottom. Since I recently ordered a million miles of narrow black fold-over-elastic off Etsy, I used it for the neckline and arm-bindings, which is super fast and would have looked great if I’d taken three more minutes to test my tension on a scrap or two.

FOE, slightly wavy.

As it is, it looks fine on but is a bit wavy off—limits the hanger appeal. Boo. Fortunately, handmade clothes aren’t really about the hanger appeal. 😉

Skirt: Narrow.

The only major problem I had was that the skirt is VERY narrow. This means you can easily get the dress out of a pretty teeny amount of fabric, but it’s not great for walking in, especially in my rather firm fabric. There is also something slightly off about how the hips fit, which goes away when I hike it up about 1.5 cm—so for the other versions I made a small tuck between bust and waist and they sit very nicely. I’m glad I didn’t try to shorten the bodice at the shoulders, which is what I often have to do, because the armscyes are NOT deep at all, and in fact could probably be lowered a wee bit.

Back, black.

After the fact, I took a bit off the sides to get a closer fit in the back. It’s hard to get dresses like this to cling to the extreme back-curve I have there. The back is pretty wrinkly even when I’m not standing with my hips off to the side, but that’s life with a swayback.

How to walk in a narrow skirt.

The main problem with the narrow skirt is that I wind up walking around with it hiked up to my knees so I can take a decent-sized step.

Version 2 (or is it three?)

I cut out the other two versions together a couple of days later. Both are rayon jerseys of some variety, although very different in terms of their overall stretch and feel. This dark, processed-photo-looking floral (with blue roses!) is super-stretchy and very drapy, with lots of weight, but a hard, almost scratchy feel.

Back view, with seam.

In an effort to maximize my skirt width, I cut the second and third dresses with a back-seam and a non-directional layout. This also let me add a swayback adjustment and some shaping to the back seam, so really no downside here—and, I figured if the skirt was still too narrow for walking, I could add a slit at the back seam as well. (I know I could’ve left side slits on the original version of the pattern, but I just don’t like that look as much.

Flared skirt cutting diagram

This may not have been the best choice since technically both my prints are directional, but I’m hoping they are big and crazy enough that nobody will pay attention.

Crazy Paisley

Incidentally, I wasn’t paying attention to print placement at all… for the third maxi, there’s a distinct repeat to those giant paisleys that wanders from almost dead centre at the hem to distinctly over to the left side at the bust. Oops. In my defense, what I was paying attention to while ignoring the print was the grain of the knit, so I’m pretty sure that the print is not at all square to that. And maybe this is better than direct boob paisley?

Butt paisley

For the non-black versions, I didn’t have a fabulous matching fold-over-elastic to speed me on my way, so I opted to bind the edges.

Step one: overlock.

I pretty much always use the same method, only varying whether I include a bit of clear elastic in the mix or not: cut a band across the greatest stretch of the fabric, 1.5″ wide or so (I am not overly precise in this, and for the roses maxi I actually used the rather off-grain strip that was left from between the two pattern pieces—plenty stretchy in this fabric but it led to some rippling that was much less of a problem when using cross-grain pieces.) These days, I typically layer fashion fabric (right side up) – knit band (right side down) – clear elastic on top, and serge away. If I’m being good, I test to see how much tension I need on both knit band and clear elastic… if I’m not, hopefully I started somewhere like the bottom of the arm-hole so no one will really see how messed up the first few inches are. I don’t pre-measure and I don’t apply it in the round, more because I am lazy than because I think it’s a better way to do things.

Overlocked!

Once I have this firm base attached, I wrap the binding around so that the loose edge is to the back and snug it up—having plenty of width makes it easy to pull it gently snug.

Wrap binding around to back and topstitch.

Typically, I actually just use a narrow zig-zag to topstitch—I have kinda developed a hate for twin needles, mostly to do with their cost vs. the teeny amount of sewing I’ve ever managed to do with one—I don’t think I’ve ever had one last through a second project (arguably, I am hard on my needles.) However, for this project I decided to try out a feature of my Grandma’s Rocketeer that I read about in the manual but hadn’t tested yet—it can actually hold two needles in its needle slot, side by side. How? You just keep opening the screw until they both fit. They do sit side by side, so it’s a narrow spread between, about 2mm, but that was perfect for the narrow bindings on these dresses. I’m pretty darn happy with how it worked, actually, and if I bust one, all I’m out is a regular stretch needle, not some fancy expensive twin.

Trim the excess off the back.

After topstitching, I trim off the extra from the back—hooray for non-fraying knits! (I wouldn’t want to use this on a knit that runs, but then those are like sewing with the devil anyway.

A little press and, voila!

I’m pretty sure I originally got this technique off of Pattern, Scissors, Cloth, which is no longer available, a fact which makes me cry on an almost weekly basis because Sherry had SUCH great info. Everytime I go to think about making a jacket now I want to go check up on her RTW Tailoring Sewalong, and then I can’t and the sadness just wells up.

Bindings!

I’m sure there are a million other tutorials on this way, and I know there’s lots of other ways to attach a binding, too, but this one is the one I keep going back to.

Side paisley

 

It seems kinda dumb that I just spent so much time going over the neck and arm bindings on this pattern, but really, that’s 3/4 of the sewing time—everything else is just a quick zip over with the serger. And the hem, of course—Steam-a-Seam is my go-to in that department.

Jeans for the Cool Kid

The Happy Teenager

Tyo’s been making out like a bandit this year. I mean, really—Syo got some yoga pants she doesn’t like and a quick stretch-knit birthday suit, and Tyo has racked in a pikachu onesie, an Avengers grad dress, and now this. I realize in terms of project numbers they’re similar (and both low… but my sewing time is at an insane premium these days, peeps), but if you look at hours committed… Tyo is way ahead. Obviously I have some parental imbalance to redress. (In my defense, Syo has benefited from at least a couple of other things that never made it on the blog, but still nothing that required more than a couple of hours to knock out on the serger.)

But anyway, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and Tyo was so very, very squeaky about this project. She was starting high school (which, in our neck of the woods, starts in Gr. 9, or roundabouts age 14), and very nervous, and determined that she had to make the most badass first impression ever. Her father was committed to drive her to school for the first day on the motorcycle. She campaigned for (although she didn’t get) freshly-blue hair.  (I like the blue hair just fine—it’s the pain in the ass of getting it applied, followed by the days of blue-getting-everywhere (blue towels. Blue bedsheets. Blue bathroom. Blue clothing.) that drive me nuts.)

But she did get a pair of jeans.

I haven’t made Tyo a pair of jeans in, um, a long time. There were these shorts, over two years ago. The last pair of Jalie jeans was 2011. This was around the time Tyo became a reluctant (but eventually fervent) convert to the Cult of the Skinny Jeans, at which point the lifespan of a pair of jeans on a growing child became numbered in months, rather than seasons or years. Handmade disposable pants? Even with a little sister and littler cousins for hand-me-downs, this was Not Happening—I declared a jeans-for-kids moratorium. Actually, I declared a moratorium on any jeans that cost more than $10… thrift store scores only, it was.

But, lately, that pesky growing thing that children do has slowed down for Tyo, and this was a big occasion, and she had a very specific idea she was very excited about. And, well, she’s been stealing all my shorts for months. So I had her go try on my most recent pair of jeans for myself. And, while she’d probably rather be shot than seen on the internet in floral jeans, the fit was pretty much spot on except for length.

It’s a very weird feeling any time someone else puts on your carefully crafted, custom-fitted handmade clothes and they FIT—it’s even weirder, IMO, when it’s your daughter. At least I’m still taller than her, unless she gets a grade-9 growth spurt, anyway.

So the good news was, I didn’t need to trace another copy of my pattern—just take a few inches out of the length. And Tyo wanted her vision completed badly enough she was even willing to help cut the fabric.

The cutter. (In my floral jeans, although you can’t actually assess the fit in this picture)

Which is not a thing that happens, ever. So yeah.

As for the Vision behind the Pants? Well, we don’t have Hot Topic in Canada (at least, not in my backwater corner of things), but Tyo has a dear friend whose parents are, um, a little more well-heeled than we (mind you that does describe a fairly large chunk of the Canadian population) and tend to take their children on cross-border shopping trips of fairly epic proportions (Fellow Canadians should note we are not part of the 80% of Canada’s population that lives within a two-hour drive of the US border. Such trips require hours of driving and hotel stays). And said dear friend had a pair of Hot Topic jeans that were one colour on one side, and another colour on the other side. So we scoured the stash for the best black denim, and then went through all the purples (how on earth did I end up with four different lenghs of purple denim? I may have a Problem.) to find one which best matched, which turned out to be this totally-intense primary (OK, secondary) purple. That I couldn’t photograph in true colour to save my life, but anyway. It’s a very bright, clear purple.

One good thing about cutting jeans this way—you pretty much have to cut in a single layer, which is a good idea anyway if you want jeans that hang straight, but I am lazy and always talk myself into cutting folded. Sometimes I get away with it, sometimes I get really annoying twisty seams.

Other than that, I don’t have much to say about the actual construction, except that I did modify things for a stitched-on fly extension, which I think I prefer to the cut-on one all my other jeans have had to date (storebought jeans always have one that is stitched on—I think the seam gives needed reinforcement to the fly edge, especially in stretchy jeans). It’s obviously not a make-or-break detail, and I’m still not terribly comfortable with how you do a fly this way, since it’s a bit different and I did end up having to do some unpicking… but it’s a thing to work on, anyway.

Back Pockets

Tyo specified that the main construction should keep colour to its appropriate side—probably a good thing. Left to myself I would probably have colourblocked everything, and it would have ended up looking really busy. As it is, I couldn’t resist swapping the back pockets and the belt-loops, and I’m not sure if it adds to the overall look or takes away. Minimalism might have been a better idea. Oh, well. I do like the doubled belt-loops at the sides as well as the back.

Two buttons

I finally remembered, after regretting it my last couple of projects, that my currently-favourite-waistband pattern piece is a bit wide, and the jeans buttons I can get a hold of here are a bit small, so a single button results in a rather insecure attachment that lets the waistband roll over in weird ways. Two buttons, however, is perfect. (I also made Tyo try them on while I marked the button location, so I don’t THINK I need to move them over, which I still have to do with my flower jeans, because the position that looks like it’s lined up  nicely when the jeans are laying flat is actually too “loose” when the jeans are on a body and the waistband is under tension—leading to chronically-low-flying flies.

One final detail, which you probably noticed in the earlier pictures, was inspired by some jeans a character in one of our favourite family TV shows, Lost Girl, wears. I can’t find any good shots, but I screen-capped this one:

 

Kenzi’s laced-up jeans

 

The Kenzi character wears at least a couple pairs in this style, with the sneaky inner-thigh lacing, which I knew Tyo loves as much as I do. And, Fabricland recently started carrying some fairly sturdy grommet-tape (where was this stuff two years ago when I was looking for it for the steampunk Hallowe’en costumes?!?)

Lacing!

So I added some. It was ridiculously simple to do, although its obviously a bit of a different look than the inspiration. Still, a fun, unique detail, and definitely one no one else has.

We took a bout a bazillion photos of Tyo in the jeans, but it was the end of the day and we were rushed so there was a lot of blur and not a lot that did the jeans justice.

I’ll still subject you to them anyway.

Back view, with pockets and blur.

I should note one more thing: these are not true “skinnies.” They were made according to my personal favourite leg-style, which I would call a stovepipe—tapered and form-fitting to the knee, absolutely straight below it, which creates jeans that are snug through the calf but not actually skinny in the ankle. I asked Tyo if she wanted them skinnified, but she said she likes this shape, and it doesn’t seem to have decreased the cool factor (although it has its drawbacks when we get to stuffing-pants-into-winter-boots weather).

Great pose, plenty of blur.

‘Tude.

I did try them on, but lucky for Tyo, they’re just a little bit too short. 😛

Obviously this first-day-of-school project is a bit out of date at this point >_<—I’m currently working on a Hallowe’en costume for the Stylish sister-in-law, and hating it mostly because it’s not for MEEEEEE, and dying to work more on ridiculous historical clothing projects that I have no actual need for. Not that I have a need for much clothing, at the moment, other than perhaps warm fuzzy things to get me through the impending winter. Hopefully I’ll manage to blog some of that in a more reasonable time-span… hah.

In the meantime, I’ll just be happy that my kid still thinks the things I make are “cool”.

At least sometimes. 😉