ginger-ella

Once upon a time, there was a girl who had big dreams of becoming a fashion designer, but never ever thought she would make a pair of jeans. Then a few years later the fairy (jeans?) mother Heather arrived to send the girl to a denim ball she never thought she'd attend, and things were just fine and dandy until a midnight sewing session (well 9:30pm, but same thing) when she SERGED A WHOLE IN THE CROTCH. Her jeans didn't fit as well as a glass slipper, which is probably explains the lack of a prince, but really, who could compare to Prince Charming in tight pants anyways?  (I did my best to find an actual photo to link, but they all seemed to originate from slightly questionable gay sites, so you get to hear his accent instead)

When the ginger jeans pattern was first released, I wasn't actually too excited; I just never thought sewing jeans was for me. Around the beginning of this year (and after seeing amazing ones posted all the time), I started to have a change of heart. It still took me a while to get around to making them though because at the time I was beginning to be quite conscious of my consumerism– by which I mean I was broke– and found it difficult to spend a whole bunch of money to make jeans, when I already had enough pairs that were just fine.
However as time went on and my desire to sew jeans increased, I thought to myself, "well yes I have enough blue jeans, but what about other coloured jeans? Loophole found. I still expected them to be an expensive endeavour, so I decided they would be a splurge treat project for when I finished the semester. But when the time came I not only found something suitable at my local Fabricland, but it only cost $15.75 for the amount that I needed (thank you Fabricland membership). In the end, the pattern, fabric, and notions cost maybe $35. Not as much of a splurge as I expected, but I'm not complaining.

I cut a straight size 4 in the high-waist, skinny leg version. All the alterations/changes made were done after basting them together and they were:
-a dart in each side of the waistband
-some weird seam allowance business at the crotch that I'll get to later
-using a smaller seam allowance at the calves (which were super tight initially), and a larger one on the lower leg/ankle area.
So not much change really.

There are two rather large things to be tweaked for next time.
1. The crotch. At some angles it is not too bad, but as you can see from the picture above, there is quite an *ahem* crotch whisker situation going on. I thought playing with the seam allowances in the area might fix it, but it didn't. I'm pretty sure the issue is addressed in the fitting post of the sewalong, and I'm telling myself it was probably not something I could have fixed after having cut everything out.

and 2. the front pockets. See above photo. Granted when these were taken I had forgotten to tuck them down as much as I could, but it seems like the pocket part is too big for the front pieces– I can't get it to lie totally flat; it always wrinkles weirdly above the scoop part on the front pieces (I'm having a hard time explaining what the heck I'm talking about). I'm hoping that I just used the wrong seam allowance at some point, or that things weren't pinned as flat as I thought.

I raised the back pockets 1/2", and then 3/8" after that, so 7/8" in total. I probably would have moved them in a smidge as well, except by that point I had already basted and removed both pockets twice and I was ready to say "good enough". It also wasn't really an option because I, erhm, may have used a... how do you say...unremovable method for marking. *facepalm*. I don't want to talk about it. I'll just move them on the next pair.

I forgot to take a picture, but for a lining I used a thrifted duvet cover printed with dinosaurs.

Because of the unique colour, I wasn't going to find matching topstitching thread, so I used two spools of regular thread instead. In a couple places this made for some loops of thread, but it's not too bad, and I think it's gotten better since I've worn them. The topstitching itself isn't superb, partially because of my inability to settle on what the guide would be on my presser foot, and, okay, partially because I was getting slightly impatient to have a darn pair of jeans already. I had a great time making these, but they were one of the momentous projects which deplete the sew-jo for a couple weeks.

As far as instructions go, everything was great (as everyone has said). I used mainly the sew-a-long posts, supplemented by the pattern instructions and everything went smoothly, including the fly zipper, on which I only had to stitch rip one seam once.

These aren't the perfect pair by a decent shot; I still mostly reach for my rtw jeans which are more comfortable and fit better, but I MADE JEANS. Still a huge win in my books. Oh and that hole serged in the crotch? I just left it. It's not that big and I don't think it is that noticeable/noticeable at all unless you are looking closely down there.

come at me Richard Madden

Thanks for reading!