Indigo Jeans

What a busy time I had. On top of moving home and a busy work schedule, my mom and sis came to visit me during Christmas. Now everything has quietened down, I am getting back to the groove of making clothes again or rather, updating my website.

On my previous experiment with jeans, I sewed a ‘selvedge’ while constructing my jeans because Japanese selvedge denim fabric is really expensive and not to mention narrow. I know I can now get ready made selvedge jeans from the shops but they are not cheap and these jeans do not fit a short guy like me well.

While I used a red bias binding in my previous design, this time I used a cotton tape with a red and blue stripe detail. Kind of like something you used to get on the edges of old envelopes.

From there on, it was just buying the other materials, including an indigo heavy weight denim fabric that only cost me £7.50 per metre. I think in total, making this pair of jeans still cost less than what I would have paid in the shops.

I personally do not like how jeans are getting skinner and skinner to a point where they are now a health hazard. I prefer a loose and tapered cut as it is more modern and also different to what is currently out there (don’t even get me started on ripped jeans!). The pattern I had reflected that cut but I did make some allowances to take into account shrinkage of the raw denim fabric.

With everything in place, I threaded up the sewing machine and started the construction of this pair of jeans. As I sewed on the striped tape, my vision of a fancy selvedge came to life.

I also used some fancy left over fabric for the pocket details. No one will ever see the lovely print but I guess this personal touch is reserved for me to know.

Previously I had complications with the thread that was used for sewing denim. As the thread had to be strong, the options I had were a thick thread that would cause havoc to my sewing machine or a slippery synthetic one that kept fraying. This time, I tried a spool of strong but fine thread being sold by the same company that I purchased the denim from. I was really amazed at the thread as the denim sewed like a normal lightweight fabric without all the usual complications.

A few hours later and no blue hands (I was impressed that the indigo did not rub off the denim), my jeans was finally done.

The details of the selvedge was exactly how I want it to be. And the idea to encase the other side of the seam in  bias  binding made the finish really clean and tidy.

And don’t forget the secret print in the pocket!

All that is left to do now is to bang in some rivets and to give it a good wash to make sure that the colour does not run.