FabricLady Tested! These Jeans are so Flattering!

Who doesn't love a good pair of jeans? Everyone, from tomboys to girly-girls, has a favorite fit. Some love a relaxed boyfriend style, like the Morgan Jeans from Closet Case Files, and we all need a pair of the Ginger Jeans also by Closet Case Files as featured in my previous blogs! Some love a slim line, like these Safran Pants from Deer and Doe. If you are like me, you can see any of these styles fitting into various moods and activities.

We can all agree that shopping for the perfect fitting jeans is not only time consuming, but often frustrating! Either they fit in the waist but the booty is to tight, or they are perfectly tapered down the leg, but the rise is way to low. Not to mention, each brand uses a different sizing style, am I a size 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, or a 26, 27, 28, 29, 30? More than likely, if you finally find the perfect jeans, you need to take out a second mortgage to pay the cashier.  And THIS is why you may want to try your hand a making a pair.

My new Safran Jeans and Tea House Top

Here they are with my Tea House Top from Sew House Seven

Getting ready for Layering with my Decades of Style, Threes a Charm Jacket, Grainline Studio's, Scout Tee and
my new favorite Deer and Doe, Safran Jeans! All available over at Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics!

This month, we are making Deer and Doe's Safran jeans. I love the higher waist and the slim, but not skinny, legs. The front pockets are unique - perfect for some great top-stitching details.

Could these Saran Jeans be any cuter?!

I'm using the same stretch denim that I used for my Ginger Jeans by Closet Case Files (Read those blogs here and here), but this time in black for my Safran jeans. We decided on the Neon Pink for the top-stitching, but Laurel wanted to add some drama on the back pockets just for fun, so we are going to incorporate the Turquoise and the Gold thread as well. Shop our selection of fun neon top-stitching thread here!

Choosing "outside the box" with Neon Top Stitching Thread! - Yes we can!

Laurel came up with a swirl detail that we will stitch in all three colors.  She  drew it freehand on paper for a pattern and pinned it to the pocket. Is that an "S" that I see?

She stitched around the edge to the S shape pattern in pink, then removed the pattern and echoed the pink stitching as a guide for the other two colors.

We decided on a single row of top-stitching to attach the pockets.

It's all in the details!

Top-stitching thread is a lot heavier than normal sewing thread, so getting the tension right can be a bit of a challenge.  The important thing to remember is that people can only see the outside of your garment, so don't stress out if the inside stitching is a little wonky.  We notice that this often happens when you plant your needle, raise the presser foot and turn a corner, leaving a little loop of top-stitching thread on the inside. Oh well.

Finishing off the end of the stitching line works best of you gently tug on the bobbin thread to bring the top-stitching thread to the inside of the garment, then tie it off.

When top stitching over a heavier section like a seam, you can stop short of joining the line together and then hand sew, taking the top stitching thread to the inside, creating a "stitch" that joins the line, and then tying it off. This will eliminate any extra bulk that would be created by backstitching with the thicker thread.

We were pretty sure that the Safran jeans would fit, so Laurel installed the fly-front zipper before sewing the pants together.  If we needed to adjust the waist, we could reduce the back or side seams.

Don't forget to be creative with your lining fabric.  Of course you can always use the same denim for the lining, but why not make it fun? One of our many cotton prints would work beautifully! Shop them here. We used scraps of this paper crane cotton from a previous garment. Laurel is the master of reworking scraps!

Great way to use your left over fun scraps!

Another Thursday with Laurel - checking the booty for fit...

Hey, these fit!

Love these pockets!

Look how the top stitching thread pops!

Marking the hem...ready to send them back to Laurel's studio for the final steps.

Back in the Studio, Laurel attached the waistband and belt loops and finished the top stitching and hems. Nothing left but that pesky buttonhole and jeans button. Everything was going great until that perfectly sewn buttonhole was on the wrong side of the fly. Making mistakes is part of the creative process - we all do it, but Laurel finds it particularly annoying.

We were both reminded of one of my favorite books, Debbie Ford's The Dark Side of the Light Chasers. In this book we learned that we ALL have aspects of our nature that we don't like, but more to the point, we ALL have things that annoy us about other people. Debbie contends that it is these very things that we hate in others that also exist in us, perhaps even hidden. This hidden "Shadow" side of our personality, as Debbie calls it, is something that we must learn to embrace so that it no longer has an emotional charge.

Assuming that Debbie is on point (which we believe she is SO on target), after reading Debbie's book, Laurel shared that one of her trigger words was "stupid", as in not very smart or not smart enough. We won't go into all her issues with this word "stupid", but after reading about this concept of embracing her dark side, she can now easily admit that she too is sometimes "stupid."

Yes, that buttonhole is on the wrong side...rookie (stupid) mistake!! But hey, at the end of the day, she laughs at it, let's it go and let's her creativity kick in.  Throw a patch on that mistake buttonhole, attach the jean's button and call it a day!

Aaahhh.  Embracing her stupid side turns out to be a good thing for me!! Actually, I don't think this is a mistake after all - looks like it belonged there all along.

XOXOXO

 

Going to love these jeans!!

Laurel and I! She looks great in my Tea House top - so much that she's making one for herself!
All my indie me-made clothes are all working so well together :)

Feel like embracing your own "Shadow"? You can pick up Debbie's book The Dark Side of the Light Chasers from Amazon Books, or at your local bookstore. It will definitely give you something to think about. As women, we want to love our whole selves, not just the parts we like or that others find pleasing. It's okay to be "not good enough" once in a while!

And meanwhile, embrace your whole self and your creativity and sew a little heart in your jeans!

Yours Creatively,

Suzan

More Cotton Ikat choices on this Link!

Layering garments can be so much fun with the the Three's a Charm Jacket, Scout Tee
and the Safran Pants! Denim Dot Jacket fabric is at this link...Shop any of
our Woven Cottons at this link for the perfect Scout Tee!
Check out all the great "Bottom weight" choices for making pants at this link, too!

Three's a Charm Jacket - Come Sew along with me!

We love sew-alongs here at Stonemountain. We take a pattern that we know everyone will love: one that is easy, has a great style and is versatile.  It's pretty easy to pick the sew-along garment as by the time we start the project, many of our customers and our own staff have already tried the pattern and they already love it!

Our current sew-along is a huge success - so many of you are still joining in making the Given a Chance dress by Decades Everyday.  What a variety of colors, textures, combinations and fabric choices we see - each dress totally unique with the sewist's own fashion flair.

 

Our new favorite indie pattern for April is again from Decades Everyday. Our sew-along features the Three's a Charm Jacket. This unlined crop jacket is the perfect companion to short-sleeved and sleeves dresses, tunic and tees. The sleeves are three-quarter length and the front closure is a single button.  It fast and simple, and yet the styling does allow for some customization in the stitching, sleeve length, and or adding trims, etc. Read about our sewalong here!

Laurel and I each chose fabric to make this jacket: I choose a lightweight eyelet with a washed denim look, as well as a woven cotton with tiny polka dots. Laurel chose a burnt orange denim... almost the same color as one of her favorite spices, turmeric.

 Click over to the Stonemountain blog for more inspiration!

For our first "Charm" jacket, Laurel made the Eyelet jacket following the suggestions on the easy to follow instructions. The eyelet jacket is but a whisper, like wearing a very lightweight sweater.  I love it because it's perfect for work - not too bulky or heavy to make me too warm, but just enough weight to keep the chill off on these cool days.

For an in-depth look at the process, check out our cutting and marking blog.

For our second Charm jacket ( for me again - yay!!) Laurel was in the mood to add some special finishes to inside of the jacket. Many sewists love to take the time to finish off the seams with a professional binding. This jacket could easily be lined, but we're not going that far - let's keep it simple.

Laurel choose some leftover fabric from Cotton and Steel to make bias strips that she would use to bind the edges of the facings... just for the fun of it.

She bound all the edges of the facing and hems. Using this technique does take more time and of course is not necessary, but we like to show you the whole range of possibilities. We know many of you who follow Fabric Lady are advanced sewists!

Read more about sewing up the facings and darts here!

The jacket was then constructed in the same way as the Eyelet jacket. But check out the inside of the finished jacket - it's almost as pretty as the outside!!

Well, not quite...

I'm wondering how many Three's a Charm Jackets can a girl own??

With May on our doorstep and the sew-along happening, Laurel got started on her "spicy" denim jacket.  With denim, it's always a good idea to pre-wash the fabric - not just for shrinkage, but the process can make the fabric softer and that was the effect Laurel was after.

We joke about the difference in our forms - I'm rockin' it around the hips and Laurel has the "Girls" going on up top.  My jacket was a perfect size 36 with no adjustments needed.  But if Laurel used the bust measurement that would seemingly fit, the shoulders would fall down to her elbows.  That's why we learn to do FBA's or full bust adjustments.

The making of Laurel's jacket was just the same as my two jackets.  Because she chose a denim fabric, she decided to spend the time doing some classic top-stitching as well as adding flat-felled seams. Things can go haywire while sewing and for us it's not different - Laurel's serger was in a rebellious mood, so the inside finishes are not a pretty as she would like.  It's okay that it's not perfect... the outside looks pretty good!

She also added a bound buttonhole.  I guess she will be shopping for a button from our awesome Button wall when she comes down in a few weeks.

Read the Stonemountain blog post on attaching the facings and topstitching.

And she finished off the facing edges, just for fun. Read about how more finishing options on the Stonemountain blog!

Miss Colette, Laurel's mini-me, rocking the Southwest look in her new Three's a Charm Jacket...

Wouldn't this jacket be awesome in a faux leather... Or elegantly made in a Duponi Silk?  That's what sewalongs are all about - getting ideas as we see each others creations - each one unique to it's creator.

Check out the end results and more jackets made by Stonemountain staff on the blog!

How can it get any better than this? Please join us and make one of these amazing jackets for your next project - you won't regret it!

Thanks for playing and sewing along with me!
Suzan
Fabriclady, LuckyLady
fabriclady3@gmail.com
Love to hear from you and to see photos of your projects!

March Indie-Bliss! - What's up next!

Why end a good thing? Our January Indie Pattern Month celebration highlighted all the great independent pattern lines that are featured at Stonemountain. We saw a lot of your creations worked up in great fabrics, and we made up a few of our own. We didn't want the fun the end, so we've picked out a few new designs to work on!

Sewaholic's Renfrew top features three different neckline treatments and three different sleeves.  Many times sewists will want to keep the basic shape of a pattern design but make some changes to the pattern to make it their own.  The Renfrew top does it for you! We will be making View B out of this soft rayon knit in one of my go-to colors - purple!

The Lark Tee by Grainline Studio is one that we will be featuring in a class soon.  Our fabric is very bold graphic rayon lycra knit. It was fun trying to decide how to use the fabrics unique print on this simple tee shirt.  There is no such thing as having too many tee shirts and your fabric choices are the key to making each one unique and totally you.

We've already seen how cute the Camas Blouse by Thread Theory can be on Instagram.  We loved this soft rayon knit and we are not above using it again for our Camas.

 

Not one but three Decades Everyday's Three's a Charm Jacket: two for me and one for Laurel. We chose two denim fabrics (the grey polkadot and the burnt orange). This cute jacket would work in almost any fabric - several of our staff members have already created their own #3sacharmjacket. The third jacket will be lightweight denim-look cotton eyelet.

Pop on over to our Stonemountain blog to read about our community sew along! I hope you will make your own Three's a Charm Jacket!

Were you inspired by our Indie pattern focus? Did you create your own unique version of a particular designer?  Drop by the store or send us a photo or tag us on Instagram.  Sharing your work with others is what makes us all want to join in the "memade" revolution!

Ok, now it's time to get it done!

See you all soon,

Suzan