Ginger Jeans - The Wearable Toile

This is a little bit blog deja vu - winter months spent obsessing about trouser fitting - I think I've been here before!

For my community college projects, one of them had to be to make a pair of trousers - that fit. Thank goodness I put in some of the labour last year! Having made my floral trousers last year I wanted to challenge myself and try out the Ginger Jeans by Closet Case Files.

I have never made a pair of jeans and wow are they different to regular trousers! I cannot recommend Heather's 'Sewing Your Own Jeans' e-book enough. This became my bible and money well spent. Pages and pages of photo illustrated instructions!

Based on the measurements I cut a size 12 - they fit perfectly at the crotch and hips (and almost matched exactly the crotch curve on my self-drafted pair from last year).

The hilarity of my waist-to-arse ratio became apparent when I had to take in the waist to a Size 2!! With a careful bit of pattern adjustment (nearly forgot the back yoke pieces but had a last minute realisation) managed to get them to fit nicely.

The regular rise version of the pattern has straight legs so  took those in a bit aswell to skinny them up a little.

The fabric is super soft stretch denim from MyFabrics.com - was lovely to sew and comfortable to wear. Construction was so much fun - who knew top stitching was so therapeutic?!

The main issue I had with this toile was some serious twisty leg. I mean really twisty. I took to Instagram to gather some help and the lovely community out there taught me the importance of a straight grainline!

Look at that crazy inseam - inseam where are you going?!

Issues encountered with the toile (my sewing not the pattern, the pattern is awesome): (these are all real technical terms btw ;)

• Twisty leg - my own fault. I hadn't got the pattern quite on grain and had cut double layer - NOT as per the jeans instructions for cutting everything from a single layer. Totally makes a difference.
• Baggy knee - I've got quite "muscly" thighs/calves so it was suggested that the fabric was tight at calf and pooled above it at knee. In the real version I have let the pattern out again at legs back to straight leg not skinny (will post on real ones next week). It still does it a bit but teach reckoned its because my legs are fuller at front than back so excess fabric occurs. What I did with toile (rightly or wrongly) was just take them in a bit at the knee. If anyone has other ideas about this please do say!
• Pocket flashing - The pockets pulled a bit so you could see the lining poking through. I changed the pattern a bit to just expand the pocket facing and avoid flashing pocket.
• Tiny fly - I found the fly extension a bit small so just extended that a bit to accommodate my zip and stitching. No fault of the pattern, just fancied a bit more room for sewing manoeuvre.
• Wiggly waistband - I cannot sew a waistband!!!!! My own incompetence at this stage. I just can't put one on without it wrinkling/waving. Had to do it in little stages and steam the hell out of it :-(

Pocket Flashing

 The good bits about the toile are that:

• I had no idea I was capable of even trying jeans so pretty pleased with these
• Learnt all about measuring from selvage for a straight grainline
• Learnt that actually shortening legs at the 'shorten here' line works - its there for a reason! (To be fair I learnt that on the real pair after these were 2 inches too long)
• Managed to make pattern adjustments not previously encountered
• Learnt the joy of 'pretty guts' - see picture below!

Pretty Guts

 And in the end I have a pretty wearable toile! After these have been assessed I'm going to chop them just below knee or mid calf for a nice pair of vintage looking summery Capri pants.

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