Can you believe we only have a few raw edges left on these jeans and one last piece to add (the waistband, in next week’s class)?!  (Likely you can, since I’ve been making these jeans for months now!)

This week’s class was great for walking through good assembly techniques.  Again and again I’m learning that there’s a proper order when sewing the inseams and crotch seam in pants.  The key is to sew the crotch seam after the inseams and side seams have been sewn.  Through the last two classes, Kenneth has been giving us some good tips so that it’s easy to get that tricky crotch seam sewn just right.

But, again, his top stitching directions deviate from those of traditional jeans.  And, again, I realized too late.  Kenneth has you sew the side seams first and then top stitch them in place.  Since you can’t add top stitching to the leg seams you sew second, his inseams are left plain.  He explains that he likes adding the top stitching to the outside since it adds decoration to the side that’s seen the most.  But, traditional jeans have the top stitching along the inseams and only a short stretch of top stitching on the side seams just behind the front pockets.  In the future if I’m copying another pair of ready-to-wear jeans, I’ll make sure to sew the inseam first.  But, I have to admit I actually don’t mind the top stitching along the side seam!  I hope my friend won’t either!

Next week will be the big reveal as I finish up these jeans and hand them over to my friend – she’s even agreed to a photo shoot!  I can’t wait!

If you’re interested in taking this class yourself, follow this link for 40% off Jean-ius: Reverse Engineer Your Favorite Fit with Kenneth D. King.

May 13, 2013

What: The Vibrant Red Skirt

Where: To work.  Then over to a neighbor’s to catch up on yesterday’s Game of Thrones episode.

~~~

May 14, 2013

What: The Silk Paco Peralta Draped Top

Where: To work.  Work was followed by track practice (where I did not wear the silk shirt!), which saved an otherwise dull day.

~~~

May 15, 2013

What: The Secret Garden Pleated Skirt

Where: To another long day of work.  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

~~~

May 16, 2013

What: The Cavalli Drape Drape Cowl

Where: To work, yet again.  Today was highlighted by lunch with friends.  Oh, how I will miss my ladies who lunch after the move.

~~~

May 17, 2013

What: The Plain Jane A-Line Skirt

Where: On a cross-country flight to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate my husband’s sister’s college graduation.  Today’s theme was ‘hat’, and I was stumped as to what to do until I saw that our wonderful bed and breakfast had several awesome hats on display near the front door.  I  just loved this crazy pink one!

~~~

May 18, 2013

What: The Gridlock Faux-Wrap Dress

Where: Around Gettysburg.  I had a great day exploring the historic town on foot in between the receptions and meals being hosted in honor of my sister-in-law and the rest of her graduating class.

~~~

May 19, 2013

What: The Silk Pajama Party Bottoms

Where: At home after another long day of travel.  I had intended on wearing my Spots and Stripes Tessuti Dress for graduation in the morning, but it has developed a bit of a stretched neckline, and I just didn’t have time to fix it before we left.  (I’m sure no one would have noticed, particularly since it was too chilly to wear without a cardigan, so I should have just brought it!)  Instead, I wore a favorite ready-to-wear dress.  I thought I’d change into something handmade after the ceremony before we headed to the airport, but we ran out of time.  So, when we got home at the end of the long travel day, I made up for the lack of a handmade garment during the day by wearing one all night!

~~~

Reflections on the week:

• Life has gotten so hectic.  I’m having a hard time focusing on the meaning of the month when there are so many other things I need to juggle.  I’d made an secret goal to wear something unique every day since I’ve now made quite a lot of things, but I’m finding it really hard to channel any kind of creativity.  For my own sanity I might just start rewearing handmade garments instead of trying to figure out how to wear all the skirts and dresses I’ve made in my jeans-and-t-shirt work environment.
• This month really makes me think about what I like to wear.  I’ve always been a pants person, but I’ve enjoyed wearing more skirts this month.  That said, I like skirts like the red one (though I thought it sat closer to my natural waist than it appears to be above – hmmm…), but I don’t wear the pleated skirt much.  I think I may turn the pleated skirt into some sort of top so that the beautiful fabric sees more sun and make more skirts like the red one.
• The first zipper I ever sewed into a garment was in the Plain Jane A-Line Skirt.  I sewed it in just like I’d done for the bags I’d made, which means the zipper teeth are exposed.  And, not in an awesome exposed zipper way.  That, choosing the wrong fabric for the facing, and the weird hem are good reminders of how far I’ve come in my sewing over the past two years.  It’s a great, wearable skirt, but it’s definitely hand made!

Okay, I just have to begin by asking if you guys have recently checked the comments on last week’s Wednesdays with Kenneth post?  The wonderful and talented Kenneth D. King, our very own teacher extraordinaire, commented!  My jaw hit the ground when it came through.  All I could say in reply was, “Thank you, thank you, thank you for such a wonderful class!”  Really, if you’re on the fence about taking this class – go for it!  His taking the time to comment here goes to show just how much time and effort he puts into this class.  Pants aren’t your thing?  Well, you can use his tips and tricks to copy any garment!  Not really interested in remaking anything but curious about tailoring? He’s got a new jacket class on Craftsy currently on sale for $19.99!  More Kenneth, please!

Okay, enough gushing.  Back to the topic at hand.  In this week’s lesson we learn how to draft the pieces we need to make the fly front and how to sew everything together.  Just like last week, Kenneth’s methods are different than those I used when making my Jalie jeans.  From what I can tell, his more closely match my ready-to-wear jeans, and I’m really pleased with how everything came together following his advice.  I will note a couple things though.  First, when you go to sew the zipper in, Kenneth suggests you fold your seam allowance over 1/2″.  But, if you read the comments carefully, you’ll see that he advises a few students to only fold their seam allowances over 1/4″ in order to better hide the zipper under the fly front.  I followed the 1/4″ advice, and I’m really happy I did since the zipper is nicely hidden.  Second, Kenneth’s suggestions for top stitching again don’t align with my idea of traditional jeans.  If you’re keen to make an exact copy of your jeans, don’t do what I seem to always do and blindly follow along without double checking the class suggestions against the pair that you’re copying. I missed my chance to top stitch along the center fly front seam, but I was able to go back and put a second row of topstitching around the fly and to add a thick bit of top stitching to help hold the fly shield in place.  That said, if I ever use this class to make a pair of pants from a crazy fabric, I think Kenneth’s careful top stitching suggestions will be perfect.

Just two classes left!  These jeans will be finished in no time!

If you’re interested in taking this class yourself, follow this link for 40% off Jean-ius: Reverse Engineer Your Favorite Fit with Kenneth D. King.

May 6, 2013

What: The Stripey Renfrew

Where: To a tough day at work.  And, that’s about all I want to say about that!

~~~

May 7, 2013

What:  The Straight-Legged Betty Jeans

Where:  To work up until track practice.  A good hard run always does a body good!

~~~

May 8, 2013

What:  The Crazy Bow Top

Where:  To work and then to a Cinco de Mayo party that had actually become an Ocho de Mayo party.

~~~

May 9, 2013

What:  The Golden Archer Buttondown

Where:  To work and then to another Thursday night Downton Abbey marathon with my neighbors.  We’re now finally half way through season two!

~~~

May 10, 2013

What:  The Cream Cowl Renfrew

Where:  To work and then a night of homemade pizza, movies, and moving chores.  I’m showing off my tiny sewing corner for this week’s Friday theme.  It’s become a lot less colorful since my wall of thread and my bulletin board have already been taken down and packed up.  I can’t wait to see what kind of sewing space I’ll be able to create once we get to Seattle.  Our apartment will only be slightly larger, but it will have a second bedroom, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to turn it into a nice library/office/sewing room.  Just a few more weeks!

~~~

May 11, 2013

What:  The “Paint Me a ?” Minoru

Where:  To a day at the beach with co-workers that served as both a baby shower for two colleagues whose wives are coincidentally due on the same day and a farewell party for me.  Though it was a beautiful day, it was overcast and chilly, which meant the jacket was a necessity.  Also, if you’ll notice, I’m a bit pink.  Despite putting sunscreen on twice, I got way too much sun.

~~~

May 12, 2013

What:  The Paint Me a Maxi Dress

Where:  To a backyard brunch with friends to celebrate Mother’s Day.  Happy day to all!

~~~

Reflections on the week:

• I might as well be repeating Tilly’s One Week One Pattern challenge with as many Renfrews as I wore this week!  What can I say – it is a favorite pattern of mine.  In fact, I plan to make another bow neck Renfrew from an even crazier silk jersey I just got from Mood!
• I love painted fabrics.

Thank you so much for your comments last week suggesting I veer away from flannel for the front pocket lining of these jeans.  The flannel went out…  but something worse might have been substituted in.  You see, I am the opposite of a procrastinator.  If I can do something early, I will.  That includes packing.  My husband and I have already packed up a large portion of our apartment, including my stash of fabrics.  I figured I wouldn’t have time to sew much of anything other than these jeans before we moved.  Needing to find a fabric for the pocket lining hadn’t crossed my mind!  In fact, I only had the flannel around because I hadn’t yet packed up the bag I’d taken to my last sewing class.  Instead of tearing apart the apartment searching for the lost fabrics, I opted to dig through my bin of scraps.  I was looking for anything big enough to cut two pockets.  If you can believe it, the only piece I found was the Riviera silk crepe de chine left over from the lining of the teal peplum I made last fall.  Silk!  Could I possibly?!

I did.

I justified my choice for three reasons.  (1) These jeans should really be considered a test pair since the muslin was made from the wrong fabric – who knows if they’ll even fit?!  (2) We machine wash the silk on my husband’s linen-and-silk buttondown, and it’s still holding up well. And, (3) the little beach umbrellas will be awfully cute on the pockets.  We shall see how the silk holds up to the rough and tumble of the denim.  I plan to wash the jeans one more time before I hem them, so I’ll at least be the first to see how the silk handles in a washing machine.  If the silk dies a horrid death, then I figure I’ll just cut the pocket bags off, sew the pockets shut, and offer the jeans to my friend with the promise to make her another pair.  These pockets might not count as “sewing well”, but it’s always fun to experiment!

Now, about the class.  In this week’s video, Kenneth shows us how to draft all the pieces we need to make our front pockets.  Then he walks us through their construction, step-by-step.  The resulting pocket bags are different than those in the Jalie jeans pattern, and I think I’m going to use Kenneth’s tips to redraft the Jalie pocket pieces since his more closely resemble the shape of the front pockets in my ready-to-wear jeans.  Things always seem to sit funny in my Jalie front pockets.  Also, I’m continuing to notice that Kenneth likes different top stitching than regular jeans.  He only stitches one row of top stitching along the front pocket edge, and when I checked (after I’d followed his advice, of course!), I noticed all of my jeans always have two rows.  Since I followed his single row of top stitching last week around the back pockets, I figure it’s okay here as well.  But, next time I’ll probably go for the double row everywhere.  At least whenever I’m making a traditional pair of jeans.

Next week we tackle the fly!

If you’re interested in taking this class yourself, follow this link for 40% off Jean-ius: Reverse Engineer Your Favorite Fit with Kenneth D. King.

May 1, 2013

What: The Gray-and-Teal Floral Pendrell and the Original Jalie Jeans

Where: To work. Then to the hardware store. My husband and I are moving to Seattle at the end of the month, and I wanted to get started on the little repairs that need to be made before we leave our current apartment. I know we have almost an entire month, but I don’t like to leave things to the last minute! The outfit finished off the night over at a neighbor’s house for our weekly watching of Game of Thrones.

~~~

May 2, 2013

What: The Black-on-Black Pants

Where: To work. Then back to the hardware store. Then to another neighbor’s house for another show. We’re watching the first seasons of Downton Abbey. I know how what all of the fuss was about!

~~~

May 3, 2013

What: The Linen Knit Renfrew

Where: To work. Then to the hardware store yet again. Then to yet another neighbor’s house. It feels like I’m on repeat! No television this night though. We sat around sharing fun stories and drinking home-brewed beers. This particular neighbor always has six of his own beers on tap. He could make up his own Me-Made May with different beer combinations every day! For the Friday theme of ‘water’, I walked over to my neighborhood duck pond.

~~~

May 4, 2013

What: The Linen Knit Side Drape Dress

Where: Around the house. It was a day of chores… with some time to stop and smell the roses in the garden.

~~~

May 5, 2013

What: The Good-Enough-for-a-First-Try Running Skirt

Where: On a morning run with friends.

~~~

Reflections on the week:

• The simple sleeveless Pendrell with its princess seams, the easy-to-wear knit Renfrew, and the classic Jalie jeans are always my go-to patterns. If my closet were filled with these and cardigans, I could be one content lady.
• I’m not so sure the Black-on-Black pants make the cut. The pattern fits well, but the wool is a disaster. I made the mistake of putting them through the wash. They got jumbled up with my other clothes, and I wasn’t the wiser until it was too late. Felt city. Scratchy felt city.
• I quite enjoy wearing the drape drape tank dress, but I really should take another stab at the neck line. Dare I unpick?
• I want to try to make another running skirt now that I have a serger.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re finally sewing our jeans!

This week’s Craftsy Jean-ius video lesson was all about the back.  First up were the back pockets.  I was merrily following everything Kenneth was doing to create my back pockets (with facings!), sewing a little bit here and a little bit there when I could squeeze in the time.  (Bananas is how I’d describe life right now.  But, we finally have a place to live in Seattle!  And, it has a sauna!  You can thank my husband and his ability to drive 26 hours in one weekend.  What?!) At dinner with friends Monday night, I proudly announced that I was working on the back pockets.  The soon-to-be-recepient of these jeans asked what design I stitched onto them.  My jaw hit the ground when I realized I’d forgotten to stitch on a design!  That’s one of my favorite parts of making my own jeans!  But, Kenneth hadn’t sewn one on, so it skipped my mind in my attempt to be a good student.  Since I’ve been going through the alphabet (A, B, C), I figured another letter was in order.  One friend said I should make my As my signature.  Another thought I should just keep on going in order, making these my Ds.  But, since my friend’s name begins with an L, I decided to first ask her if she wanted an L on the back.  She said she has always liked cursive Ls, so it was settled.  When I got home from dinner, I carefully chalked an L onto the back around all of the stitching I’d done to prep the facing, mirrored it on the other pocket, and started top stitching.  Three things I’d like to note here.  First, back pocket designs are best (in my opinion, of course!) when their ends get folded under and top stitched in place.  I use my back pockets a lot for storing my phone or some loose cash or a metro ticket, and my Bs are starting to unravel because I just pulled the loose threads to the back and tied them off.  Obviously not tightly enough.  Second, practice your topstitching on scraps to get the tension right.  This time I’m using a regular thread in my bobbin (instead of topstitching thread), and while my sewing is going much more smoothly than with my other pairs, the thread tension setting I’d used for my previous jeans wasn’t right.  Unfortunately, I didn’t notice until I was done with both Ls.  Again, too much focus, but not enough vision.  When I saw how uneven the stitches were, I practiced on some scraps.  Things got slightly better for the topstitching around the pockets, but I overcompensated, and the stitches are a bit tight.  I practiced some more, and things got much better for the yoke.  Nice, even, long stitches.  I think that bodes well for the rest of the jeans.  Hopefully my friend will forgive me for the poorly stitched Ls…  Third, you really have to tack down the top corners of the pockets if you’re not going to use rivets.  Kenneth recommends just a few back stitches, but I’ve found (with my poor Bs again!) that it’s just not enough since I actually use those pockets.

Since everything feels so miniature on these jeans (size 24 petite!), I decided I would only topstitch a single time around the pockets and keep the two rows of top stitching on the yoke fairly close together.  Kenneth gave us permission to use our edge stitching foot to keep the rows even, so that’s exactly what I did.  Even Maya noticed how nice and even it is!

Next week is a whole video lesson on making the front pockets.  My friend is always cold, so I was thinking about cutting the pocket bags out of flannel.  Do you think flannel would be too bulky for the front pockets?  I think she’d really appreciate the extra warmth…

If you’re interested in taking this class yourself, follow this link for 40% off Jean-ius: Reverse Engineer Your Favorite Fit with Kenneth D. King.

It’s the last week full week in April, which makes this my last post on Cotton.  For now. There’s so much to learn about this versatile fabric that it’s hard to imagine ever truly having a last post about it.

This week I wanted to focus on one of the final steps in the making of my Archer:  stitching the hem.  Again, I followed advice from Susan Khalje’s book Linen and Cotton.  Susan’s book has five pages on hems, the bulk of which are spent describing the narrow machine hem.  Her focus is on hemming a circular skirt, but I thought the technique would help me get a nice curved hem on my shirt.  The trick is to start with a row of stay stitching right below the intended hem.  Susan says,

This first row of stitching is the most important–it establishes the hemline and acts as staystitching.  It also allows you to assess the placement of the hem.  It’s easy to spot and correct any adjustments that are needed at this point.

She recommends “allowing at least a 3/8-in. seam allowance” since “anything less is difficult to manipulate.”  That said, I stitched my row of staystitching right at the pattern’s recommended 1/4″ seam allowance since I wanted to keep as much length as possible.

Next, fold and press along the row of stitching.  Then, sew a second row of stitching parallel to the first, and cut off the seam allowance as close to the new row of stitching as possible.  Since I’d skimped on the first step, I didn’t have much to trim off here.  What little I did trim off was done using my applique scissors since any slip would mean cutting through my nearly finished shirt!  Finally, fold along the trimmed seam, press, and stitch a third row of stitching parallel to the second row.  This final row of stitching is the only one that should now be visible from the front.

And, ta da!, a nicely rounded hem.  The book carries on about hemming, so I do recommend you check it out if you ever have a chance, but that’s the narrow machine hem in a nutshell.

Okay, now I’m off to the first day of the Pattern Review Weekend.  Can’t wait!

Congratulations go to aleah of no time to sew!  She recently made a dress that looks just like one in this book, which hopefully means that she’ll get quite a lot of use out of this book!   aleah, Laurence King Publishing will be sending you your very own copy of Drape Drape 3 shortly.  In fact, it sounds like they’ve already put it in the mail!  Enjoy!

And, just in case you didn’t get enough of my Drape Drape 3 project, it’s now posted over on the Mood Sewing Network. Pop on over and say hello!