Tuesday, September 29, 2015


I've left this longer than I meant to but have been somewhat busy with various things.

These are 2 views of the completed Strawberry Thief jeans jacket that I was cutting in the last entry. It's worn here with a pair of paisley twill jeans in a fabric called Joanne olive. The shirt seen here is the long sleeved 3 button tshirt that I made back in spring. The boots area pair of short crepe soled chelsea boot type that I got in TK Maxx, possibly a little narrow for my feet but they look pretty good.
















 The jacket took about a week and a half to do and I think was mainly pretty straightforward. The only point of trouble I can think of was that I had to work out how  to do the side/inner pocket thing which is 2 pockets made out of what is 2 pieces of fabric on the original.


Here I had used interfacing on the back of the pocket part that's made out of  the same fabric as the outer shell. That meant that if I had my hands in the side pocket they would be up against the interfacing which is something better avoided.  I therefore had to work out how to add in a 3rd layer to the pocket.  Since i hadn't thought the process through totally before beginning construction I had wound up stitching the 2 parts of the pocket which I'd started with together and then had to unstitch them to add the 3rd.  The cerise jacket didn't have interfacing on the pocket back so the technique i had already used needed to be adjusted.
There is a way of stitching things so that all the excess bits of seam allowance from the pocket parts will be captured together in an area that isn't open, especially since it winds up sealed within the waistband when that's added. The alternative way has the rough edges sticking out at one point. Subsequently if I'm going for 3 layers on the pocket it is best to start with them being stitched together in the same seam.

Otherwise i think this went together pretty easily. The only mistake i can think of is that I need to watch where I'm cutting the buttonhole on the pocket flaps. I cut the one on one side too high so the thread that the button that goes through it is higher in the fabric its attached to than it wants to be. I'm worried that if anything wrenches it, it will rip through the top of the piece of fabric it's attached to. Not really something it's easy to work out when the pocket flap is unattached, which is the easiest way of doing the hole. But definitely something that I will need to take into account in future. I think I was thinking that it actually made more sense to have it higher when I was sewing and cutting it.




The jeans are similar to most of the other jeans I have made so far. based around a pair of jeans that wore out on me a while back and then heavily custom fitted. I'm wondering if the cut on the originals is the same as the cut on a pair of jeans made by the same firm that I have been wearing for rough work recently. If so the fitting is a lot tighter on the end garment here.
I've nearly run out of the twill curtain lining I've been using for making linings and pockets out of for the last year plus, these are the first pair of jeans that have the new substitute which is a cotton curtain fabric with plants and boats on. I bought this stuff because it comes as twice the width of most curtaining fabric plus it was on a sale. I think this was 280cm wide. I really should have got a few metres of the stuff not just one. Though pockets are now a more papery consistency than the twill had them as. I really need to work out what the best fabric for making trouser pocket bags out of is. Especially if I wind up selling any of these things which people keep suggesting. I think I'm still a ways away from that point, and not good enough or accurate enough and take too much time over each garment. Would also really need a decent sewing machine to do things on a larger scale. But I'm getting there slowly.



I've now completed another pair of babycord jeans, this time in a fabric I've been looking at all summer. I don't think I had really thought they would come out looking like this, since the brown background seemed to be more prominent. They seem to be more prominently coloured by the pattern detail than the background.
I had a lot of trouble with the crotch on this pair which  meant a lot of unpicking to try to get it to go right. I think I am still struggling with zips. Trying to get them to go in absolutely flat and not have excessive use of thread around them.
 I still don't really know the correct place to sew the end of the under seam to. It should be in line with the stopper on the bottom end of the zip but the zip only gets sewn in after that seam is done.


This is a close up of the pattern as shown in the advert. I guess the likelihood of the brown showing through with any prominence is not that high.
Again I'm interested in what colour people would see that pattern as. Especially since the layout may only be really visible on close inspection.

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