Suit for a Wedding

It's challenging to figure out what to wear for important family events.   Add in an outdoor event, uncertain weather conditions, and a bride determined to have a very different wedding and it becomes almost impossible.

I decided that pants and sensible shoes would be most appropriate, given the outdoor venue and uneven ground.  The weather considerations made layering a really good plan.

I decided to make a matching jacket and pants.  I found this lovely green stretch denim material.  It's slightly shiny, like a cotton sateen.  It's not a traditional choice for formal wear, but it works well and fits nicely.

The jacket is a McCall's pattern, now out of print.  I modified it to fit me. 

It has this lovely embellishment, achieved with ribbon sewn to the fabric and topped off with buttons.  I chose buttons with sunbursts because I do like sunshine.

For the pants, I used my standby jeans pattern.  Again, it's not traditional, but I knew that the pants would fit.    The jacket is funky enough that it needs to be paired with something more than standard dress pants anyway.

The pockets of the jeans were decorated with this lovely one color design from Embroidery Library.  The one color design keeps is slightly understated and the jellyfish design speaks to my love of the ocean and scuba diving.

The suit was a smashing success and I use it as my go-to formal outfit for winter events.  It was perfect for the wonderful concert by the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra last weekend.

Come back next week for more fun with a sewing machine.

Jeans

 I like a good pair of jeans that really fit.  I've found that I need to make the jeans myself to achieve that good fit.  Last week, I discussed how to make that good fit happen.  This week, I'll talk about how to achieve that classic 5-pocket styling in a pair of jeans.

I used an out of print Kwik-Sew pattern, but McCall's 5894 is an current pattern for classic jeans.  Jeans are different from slacks in a number of ways.  First, they feature a back yoke, rather than just a single piece with darts in the back.  Second, the pocket arrangements are different and a lot more flattering on most people.  Finally, the seams are both reinforced and celebrated with top stitching.

The back pockets of jeans usually have some decorative stitching, but it's a great place for adding embroidery.  It's easy to embroider anything you like before the pockets are attached.  Denim is a nice heavy material and can support even quite heavy stitching.  For this pair of jeans I chose a design featuring calla lilies.  Often, I make the pocket designs the mirror reverse of each other, but with this nearly symmetric design, I made the pockets identical.

Top stitching is important to the classic look of jeans.  Top stitching works best with special top stitching thread.  I've tried a couple of kinds and the Coats and Clark thread works best for me.  I can even use it with a regular jeans needle, rather than needing to use the special top stitching needle.  There's a lot of switching back and forth between regular thread and the top stitching thread in making the jeans.  I've read that some people with more than one sewing machine will set up one with dark thread and one with top stitching thread.  In either case, regular bobbin thread to match the fabric is used for all the stitching except the embroidery.

Here, the coin pocket is attached to the pocket lining.  The pocket lining should be made of some much thinner material than denim.  I generally grab some polyester-cotton blend broadcloth out of my stash that mostly matches the color of the denim I'm using.

Lots of different thread went into making these jeans.  Just for fun, I collected them all for a group photo.  There's 7 colors of embroidery thread, plus black embroidery bobbin thread.  There's two colors of regular sewing thread.  I used the orange for the basting to check fit, as described last week, and finally, white top stitching thread.  Wow!  That's 11 different threads!

As for the rest of the details of making jeans?  It's easy, just follow the pattern directions and change threads a lot.

Come back next Saturday for more Fun with a Sewing Machine!

Fitting Jeans

Jeans are a wonderful wardrobe staple.  Everyone wears them: men, women, and children. They can be work pants or dressy pants.  They go with pretty much everything.

The challenge with jeans is that they have to fit.  For those of us who are pear-shaped, jeans that fit in the hips seem to be always too loose in the waist, sometimes by several inches.  On tighter fitting styles, the seat still seams to be somehow not right.  The good news is, all of this can be fixed with proper pattern modifications.

Basic sizing of jeans is accomplished by adding fabric to the side seams, hems, and top at the waistband.  However, for those of us with an especially curvy butt, that's just not enough.

The first thing to do is to add to the back of the pants at the crotch.  As seen with the line of pins here, make the center back seam longer and taper into the inseam.  I cut the back long the pattern or the pins, which ever was bigger.

The back yoke also needs modified for best fit.  Take fabric out of the center back seam, tapering to nothing at the yoke/back seam.  Add extra fabric to the top of the pants at the center back.  

Assemble the pants in a different order than the instructions call for.  First, put the zipper in the center front.  Skip the pockets, because fitting the jeans might change the pocket locations.  Sew the back yoke to the back.  Then, baste the side seams, inseams, and center back seam.  I like to use contrasting color thread to make the remove of the basting stitches easier. 

With the jeans basted together, try them on for fit and adjust the side seams and back part of the inseam as necessary.  Yes, even pear shaped women can get jeans that just fit, without being excessively baggy anywhere.

At this point, the jeans should fit well, so it's just a matter of adding all the special touches that make jeans special.  Come back next week for a discussion of pocket embroidery and top stitching.