Morgan Jeans in Black Denim

Boyfriend Jeans

I just finished a pair of Morgan Boyfriend jeans by Closet Case patterns, in black non stretch denim.  I bought the fabric from Mood about a year and a half ago when I was in Southern California for my nephew's wedding. What are boyfriend jeans, you say? I had to look that up, they jeans cut in a more boyish way and resemble the jeans we used to steal from our boyfriends when we were in college. They are not stretch and do not hug the figure the way the Closet Case Ginger jeans or the Jalie 2908 jeans do.

I have three Craftsy classes on Jeans, Jean-ius by Kenneth D King, Sewing Designer Jeans by Angela Wolf, and The Perfect Jeans by Jennifer Stern-Haseman. The Jean-ius class focuses on copying a pair of jeans that already fit well and contains only nominal fitting information, but has a lot of nice techniques. Well, you would expect that from Professor King. The Sewing Designer Jeans focuses more on stretch denim jeans from a pattern, but Angela has some nice ideas. She advocates using fun fabrics for the pocket bags and colorful thread in the serger. Not that anyone would see these details, but they do make you smile when you get dressed. She does offer some fitting, which I found helpful. The Perfect Jeans class focuses only on fitting, which was very excellent.

Silk pocket bags! 

Since I had some red silk charmeuse left over from a red silk top (that I never blogged about), I decided to use it for the pocket bags in the photo above.

"Lined" yoke

Then I thought well, why not on the yokes? I basted to the top seam and turned the bottoms under and hand sewed the lining to the seam allowance.

And even the waistband facing

Before I cut out the yokes I made sure that there was enough for the waistband facing. I have to admit, it feels very good against the skin but I'm not sure how practical the silk will prove to be.  I did hand wash the silk first and boy, does that red bleed. I'll have to remember to add a dye catcher when I wash these. The silk left so much lint all over the jeans I had to go over them very carefully with a pet sponge.

Belt loop and watch pocket detail

As you can see, I had way too much fun with these jeans. I found the scroll stitch on my machine and decided to add it to the pockets. All topstiching is done with two threads. I had three machines set up, my Husqvarna Viking Designer Diamond Royal for the seams, my serger for the seam finishes, and an old HV Designer I for the topstitching.

Back pockets and belt loops

Angela Wolf suggests adding a fun touch to the belt loops, so I added the scroll stitch used on the pockets to them. I cut one long strip of fabric, then stitched the scrolls, six scrolls for the sides and front loops, seven scrolls for the back ones which are crossed and therefore a bit longer.  The scrolls had about 1 1/2 inches between each group to allow for the turn under of the loops.

Can you see the difference between the hem and side seam topstitching?

Then at the very end I had taken the grey thread out of the D-1 topstitching machine, and thought I had used up all the thread on the bobbin (for the second topstitch thread), so I decided to use the triple stitch for the hem. I can see the difference, but if anyone else can while I'm wearing them, then that person is way too close. As I was cleaning up after finishing, I found the bobbin with the grey thread, of course.

I love the jeans but still have to tweak the fit a bit on the next pair. But first up, a pair of pink jeans for my granddaughter. I will post as I make these using the tips in the classes and comparing the pattern instruction against the techniques I'll be using. Those will be fun.

Now, for a bit of wildlife biology: did you know bisons eat raspberries?

Yum yum!

They love them!

Happy Stitching!