Spring-ish Lander Pants

Hi team, happy spring/autumn! Not that it feels like spring in Wellington at the moment, my weather app tells me it feel like 4 degrees outside currently, and I believe it…though we have had some absolutely beautiful spring-like days recently, so I’m not going to complain. I’m definitely looking forward to some consistently warm weather though! I’ve been planning out some sewing to get me through this transitional period, and top of my list was some new trousers. I love my Ginger Jeans and my Safran Jeans, but by the end of winter I am genuinely sick of seeing them. I had plans to make the Closet Case Pietra Pants, but I needed to prewash the fabric, and it took a couple of days to get dry this week as it’s been so cold (the lesson here is to prewash and dry your fabric as soon as you get it, not just before you want to use it…). As it was hanging in the laundry, I pulled out some already pre-washed denim and decided to make the 1970’s inspired Lander jeans that I’d been thinking about all winter.

I’m not sure where this denim came from, it’s been sitting in my stash for years! I had about 3.5m of it, so I suspect it may have been from one of The Fabric Warehouse’s sales. Its a nice weight, on the heavy side of medium, and I love the mid-indigo blue. It has a little bit of stretch, so I suspect it was bought for another pair of Ginger Jeans! I have plenty left over, so that may still happen. I think it’ll age nicely, it feels like it should soften up and wear in like the other denims I’ve bought from TFW. All of the fabric and hardwear for these came from my stash, which is awesome. I despair at the amount of stuff I’ve accumulated over the years sometimes, but other times I love that I generally have everything i need for a project on hand!

Obviously I’ve made a few changes to the Lander pattern, I’ve got rid of the exposed button fly and swapped the patch pockets for internal pockets with a pocket stay. I love the look of the exposed button fly, but I hated the way it pulled on my first pair of linen Landers. It was also a pain to get in and out of! I think a zip fly is more practical, and also sits nice and flat which I prefer. I didn’t buy the zip fly expansion pack, I just used the fly pieces from the pattern and subbed in the instructions from a fly zip tutorial and it’s turned out great. The pockets were a bit more of a fiddle to hack, I copied the general shape of the pocket pieces from the Ginger jeans to get the pocket stay (the Curvy Sewing Collective have a tutorial on how to do it here!), and then cut the shape of the pocket opening from the front piece. I also added a piece of denim to the top of the pocket piece rather than having the whole piece cut from denim to minimise the bulk. Both pieces of the pocket bag are made from a scrap of rigid cotton chambray, its lovely and soft across my tummy!

I really love these pockets, the pocket stay makes it feel like there isn’t too much stress on the zip (these are drafted to fit  pretty tight across the hips!), and it also means that the pockets are big enough to fit my phone and my hands in at the same time! The holy grail of pockets, in my opinion. The back pockets on the Landers are also huge, giving me so many options for places to stash things. They’re basically like the Mary Poppins carpet bag of trousers! I slipped another one of my favourite Kylie and the Machine labels into the topstitching of one of the pockets, I love it…

It’s funny, until I saw pictures of my in these I thought they were so much wider than they actually are! I think I must be so used to skinny jeans that anything else feels very breezy. I think these will be a great option to get me through until the warm weather arrives, the slightly cropped length (I took an inch off the full length version and then turned the hem up 3 inches) means I won’t feel silly wearing socks with them but can also wear them without if its not too cold!

I’ll also briefly talk about my top, I’ve finally climbed aboard the Mandy Boat Tee train! Actually this is my second attempt at this pattern, I tried it a few years ago when it was a single size, and it was hugely too big for me. When Tessuti re-released it with 4 size options I thought I should try it again! This is the size 2, with a few inches off the bottom so that I could fit it onto an odd length of jersey knit from the stash. I love this yarn dyed stripe, its lovely and drapey and soft, and I think it works well with this pattern! I’m glad I gave it another go, it was a really quick sew, even with stripe matching. And it’s a free pattern! I am glad I remembered to put a ‘This is the Back’ label into the back neckline before cover stitching it down, otherwise I’d be getting it wrong constantly…

Well there we go, the first of my spring sewing! Hopefully I’ll get those Pietra Pants sewn up soon…

 

 

Jeans!!

I was going to try to come up with a witty title for this post, but to be honest JEANS!! sums it up! I’ve been putting off making jeans for two years, ever since i bought the Ginger Jeans pattern, and now I’m really not sure why. I’ve jumped head first into sewing with silk velvet, into making lined coats, and into using unmarked, single size vintage patterns, but jeans always just seemed a bridge too far. Given that jeans are probably the biggest staple in my wardrobe (I wear them every day, as I get changed into scrubs at work and don’t have to look professional), so I finally decided to get over myself and cut into one of the many lengths of denim which I have been stashing for my eventual jean-making adventure.

Now, you may have noticed that there are not, in fact, the famed Ginger Jeans. When Deer and Doe released their Safran Pants pattern I grabbed it, thinking that maybe a pattern which uses denim with at least 30% stretch would be more forgiving for a first foray into sewing skinny jeans. I think it was a good decision, I’m really happy with these jeans, and I’ve learned a few things that I’ll apply to the Ginger pattern when I make them up.

The Safran pattern has a true high waist, the button sits pretty much exactly over my belly button. I really like a high waist, I like being able to tuck my muffin-top in! I find it more comfortable than a lower rise, especially when it’s a close fitting waistband. I also like the slanted welt pockets, they’re a bit different to traditional jeans pockets, but I think they’re really neat and tidy, and they were easy enough to construct. I do wish that I had followed the instructions and cut half of the pocket bag out of denim instead of my contrasting cotton. I thought I was being clever and keeping things streamlined by using the thinner cotton for both pieced, and it wasn’t until the pockets were fully constructed that I realised a line of cream cotton was visible down each side of the welt. its a bit annoying, but I’ll know for next time!

I think the fit in the front is pretty good, there are minimal drag lines around the fly/pockets. the fly went in really easily, though I have constructed a few fly fronts now and they don’t bother me like they used to! I do however have quite a few wrinkles on the legs, particularly at the knees. Initially I thought that I had cut the front legs off grain, but they aren’t wanting to twist, I just have those weird diagonal wrinkles. I think I need a full calf adjustment (dancing in 3 inch heels at over 200 beats per minute makes for good calf muscles), as I also have a fair amount of spare fabric behind my knees and they’re a bit snug around my calves. I did a bit of a cheap and nasty fix, pinching out fabric at the knee and letting out the seams at the calf, but next time I’ll do a proper full calf adjustment.

I have under-bum wrinkles and some across the back of my thighs too, but I’m less worried about those to be honest. I can’t see them, and they don’t make things uncomfortable! I’ll look into ways to reduce it for the next pair.

I am pretty happy with the pocket placement! I decided to leave the pockets plain, as I was just using navy top stitching thread, and because my darling Bernina was really not happy about sewing with top stitching thread, and kept packing a sad on me. I had to take the jeans into my local craft shop and use one of their modern Janome machines to top stitch the waistband and belt loops, and to sew the buttonhole. Surprisingly, the one thing my Bernina was happy to do with the heavier thread was sew bar tacks. I used bar tacks on the fly, of course, and also at the top corners of each of the back pockets, and at the inner corners of the welt pockets. Pretty much wherever you’d put rivets, I guess!

I’m so stoked with these jeans! I’ve worn them all week, and they haven’t bagged out at all. The waistband is still sitting flush with my waist all the way around (not even gaping at my sway back!), which I think is down to a combination of a well drafted waistband, good recovery in the denim I picked (it’s from The Fabric Store, of course), and a good knit interfacing from Made Marion Craft. I really love the shape of these, and the cropped length is really cute (though I now have slightly sunburned ankles after a weekend spent outside). I took these photos yesterday morning before I headed out to the Homegrown music festival which was held on the waterfront. I can now confirm that they’ve stood up to some seriously sweaty, energetic, probably terrible dancing to some bands which I loved when I was at high school and university, and they also coped with another hot and crowded day at the Newtown Festival today. And they still haven’t bagged out! I definitely feel like I’m onto a winner. I definitely feel ridiculous for waiting this long to make jeans, I love that now I can actually wear a fully handmade outfit every day without thinking too hard about what I’m putting on. Clearly I need to make another pair…

(so stretchy, so comfortable!)