striped jeans

The shape for these stretch jeans is a mixture of Vogue (7481) and Marfy (1058) patterns. I compared both patterns for many hours and also compared garments made from both patterns. In shape the final pattern is more like the Marfy than the Vogue, but slimmer in the hips. The rear pockets are an enlarged version (to fit iphone better) of those from Vogue 8202 and belt carriers are also from that pattern.

The construction closely follows James' jeans, so that required different adjustments to the pattern, particularly to the fly and pocket areas. To give myself a chance of not messing it up, and also getting close to having a reliable pattern, after cutting out the pattern (with no pockets), in what I was fairly sure erred on the loose side, I tacked it together and then readjusted things (side seams, rear crotch). Then took the tacking apart, adjusted the pattern, and recut the legs out of the same pieces of fabric. For trousers I have got into the habit of cutting the waistband after the legs are fully constructed, to make sure I get the right length and shape. In this case I tried a traditional straight waistband, but got a bit gap at the back, so I cut the final band to the wight length, based on the curved waistband of the Marfy pattern.

What with all that and the lapped side seams, and fly construction, making these jeans was a pretty long job, taking up much of the New Year's holidays plus a couple of weekends in January, but all the guesswork and trial and error seems to have worked out and presently I feel that these jeans are a better fit than either the Marfy or any of the Vogue versions. I find this to be quite encouraging! :-) The photos are taken after about 5 days of wear without laundering. One annoying mistake I made was forgetting how far to overlap the fly front at the top, and not doing it far enough, meaning that it is possible to just see the edge of the zipper puller when the jeans are worn without a belt.

The striped stretch denim is mid to heavy weight and was bought from Swany in Kamakura some time ago. Swany always seem to have some denim, but the selection varies, so when I seem something I like I tend to buy enough for some jeans. My sewing machine sewed through it magnificently as always, only destroying one needle, and skipping just a handful of stitches over the 6+ layer section of the side-seams.