Do I look tired? Yeah, but they were worth it! I love these very much. There were difficulties along the way, but nothing insurmountable. Here were the toughest parts:
1. Be careful when you sew the yoke on. I totally sewed it on wrong even though he tells you to be careful and didn't realize until I had serged and topstitched the yoke and done the side seams and serged them. That was a lot of ripping and I was not happy.
2. Top stiching is hard. My machine had a tough time top stitching through the uneven layers. I would do a sample and it would look great, then I'd go to the jeans and the machine would whine and groan and have a conniption.
3. I had trouble getting the hang of the burrito, but once I figured it out, no problem. Let me just say that if it seems too easy and your burrito doesn't seem necessary, you might not have it right.
That's it! Making jeans is not that hard! Totally doable.
Modifications that I made to Mr. King's directions.
1. Used a double needle for topstitching since I was going for a traditional 5 pocket look.
2. Didn't do the facing on the top of the back pocket. Instead I put a normal seam allowance on my traced pattern piece. Then I just serged the top edge, folded it under and top stitched it.
3. I put the pockets on last since I changed their size a little from the original jeans. Pocket placement is the most important part of making your butt look good. How did I do? I feel like My butt could (should?) look better. Where would you move them?
4. Sewed the rise, inseam, and outseam in that order so I could top stitch up the back of the booty, then on the inseam and then just down to the hip on the outseam to mimic some ready to wear jeans that I was looking at. I did the top stitching to attach my pockets using a single needle because I couldn't get the hang of doing corners with the twin needle.
5. I did a hand-worked buttonhole using a doubled strand of my jeans topstitching thread and the instructions from this awesome sewing blog. I did not feel like my machines could handle the job.
6. For the waistband I pulled my stretch denim tight across the center back to make sure my waistband doesn't gape and show my business. I also added a little height to the top center of the back pattern piece and the yoke piece to make sure I had everything well covered back there. I am a mom and I do a lot of bending over, my custom jeans need to help me out.
You can see the trouble I had with my bar tacks. Clearly, I was ready to call it good enough. Ideally I would have bar tacks on the tops of the back pockets as well, but it was not going well, at all.
I love these jeans very, very much! I already have a second pair cut out. Here's what I'm planning to change for round 2:
1. After wearing these, I have decided that the front rise could be a little shorter so I folded my pattern piece down a little right below the zipper. These are medium/high rise jeans and hit me right below my belly button which is exactly what I wanted but the front kind of buckles a little.
2. The next pair will have a tulip hem to show off my boots a little better. As you can see, these look awesome with my slippers, ditto sandals and they are narrow enough to tuck into my uggs easily.
3. I'm doing a rounded back pocket to go with the tulip hem.
4. Different color of topstitching thread, though the denim is exactly the same. Maybe navy?
5. I'll do a wider pocket bag to go all the way across the front and get sewn under the zipper facings. My original pair have this, but I was worried that the jeans would not work with that non/stretch material all the way across the front. As a result, the pocket bags can bulge a little and my mama-tummy is not as camouflaged as I would like it to be.
I'll do a follow up post with construction pictures and a few closeups.
hugs and kisses!
love,
Karin
