~ Mimi's Adventures in Crafting ~

The musings and adventures of a "forty-something" wife and mother whose inner-artisan has been reignited. Enter my realm and enjoy....


Monday, November 16, 2009

M5142 Jeans: The Perfect Fit

The jean saga continues and is rapidly approaching its completion. This project has been a fun one and has moved onto the quest of achieving the perfect fit. The leg inseams have been sewn and topstitched and the crotch and side seams are basted and tested for fit.



I pin basted the side seams and marked the inside with a basting line and stitched together. Retried the jeans and adjusted again. The M5142 offers a generous 1” seam allowance but I found I needed to take an additional ½” to 1” more from the waist down to the knee. I did make up the pattern according to my hip size and I previously had adjusted the pattern taking out 1 ½” from both sides of the front and back legs tapering at the knee and flaring out at the hem. This pattern has a classic fit with it being pretty straight from hip to hem and I didn’t like that design so I had adjusted it to match my RTW jeans. Being as these were my “mock-ups” I will have to downsize my pattern and adjust for the additional amount needed to be taken in. All in all they have turned out well.

  

The next challenge consisted of matching up the yoke and crotch seams and getting over the “hump” created by all those layers of jean fabric!  A hammer and towel help to soften up the "hump" area as well as a size 18 topstitching needle.  I fabricated a homemade "Jean-A-Ma-Jig" which was aided in getting over these seams too.

 

I matched my topstitching in this area to what was sewn on my RTW jeans.

 

For the side seams I did the same. My RTW’s had the seams pressed to the back and topstitched from the waist to the end of the pocket and bar tacked.

 

Next post I’ll move onto total completion of these jeans installing the waistband, belt loops and buttonhole/button.

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