I’m not a good cold weather person. The weather generating department doesn’t care what temperatures I prefer to work in and it’s getting to be down right winter, whether I like it or not. Harrumph! Winter is here. At least it will kill off the bugs so next spring and summer will be tolerable.
In fact, it even snowed here today for a number of hours, covering all the yards with a layer of white blanket. It didn’t stick to the roads and by nightfall all the snow was melted away. Tonight it will be in the low 20’s, tomorrow’s highs will make it to the low 40’s.
It’s cold. Too cold. I’ve been dreaming of wearing my fleece power stretch long johns and thick wool pants. And maybe a layer of silk long johns under that, too.
I have to work in the outside temperatures. My cutting room is still in the garage and I have the cabbage and Brussels sprouts out in the Fall garden yet to care for and the dog to walk every day. So I can’t just hibernate, duty calls. Pffft.
Here’s a stretch wool denim fabric I’ve had stashed. I bought it from Nancy Erickson a number of years ago. It’s a fine, hefty fabric and I have enough for two pairs of pants.
I chose to first make over sized jeans, using the HP 1115, Dressy Jeans pattern.
I compared it to my TNT pants block and it looked very close in the shape of both the crotch curve and side seams. But I didn’t want tight, well fitted dress pants, I wanted field-worthy outerwear so I could pile on as many layers of insulation as needed. My next pair will be slim fitted and much more fashionable (I hope)
I cut a size 20 right out of the envelope.
And my fabric is stretchy. Here’s the result with one layer of medium thick fleece backed power stretch long johns under the unlined pants, undershirt and sweater tucked in. The fabric clings to the power stretch long johns and would hang better if they were lined.
The pants are hemmed to work with a higher cowboy boot but are shown with the lower rain boots.
No Belt
With Belt
I hope to make a couple of sweater vests to vary the outfit
I needed the legs to be narrower than trousers so I can walk through grass and not have the fabric flapping about in the wind. And I needed the pant legs to go over my boots.
So that worked.
Here’s the get up, with the warmest coat I have at the moment. It desperately needs to be replaced, too. I guess sensitive neighbors will have cover their eyes for a little while longer until I get it’s replacement made.
There’s one review of this pattern at Pattern Review.com and the seamstress, GlobalMom, did a great job of top stitching. I chose not to recreate the classic jean look and did minimal top stitching. I also cut the back pockets at the size 18, rather than size 20. Those pockets grow incrementally and size 20 would have been .5″ wider. It was getting scary.
I deviated from HP techniques in that I zigzagged the pocket bags on top of the pocket facing rather than having the bulk of a seam at the join
And I also lengthened the pocket bags by 1.25″ by slicing apart the pattern piece in the middle and inserting extra paper. I should have made them 2″ deeper but 1.25″ will suffice. Just barely.
Lengthen the pocket bags if you need real pockets.
In her review, GlobalMom was stumped by the zipper instructions and said Trudy had directed her to their YouTube video on zipper insertion so I went right to YouTube and watched, and installed the zipper with flourish of which Hot Patterns would be proud. Ta Da! A zipper set well back from the front fold of the fly.
Love that traditional Japanese cotton I used for the fly shield, pocket bags, and waistband facing. It was from Silk Road Fabrics in Austin, Texas, another independent fabric store soon to be closed. I have about a yard left after making DH Dave’s yukata kimono
However, the waistband pattern pieces didn’t fit the pant body. Apparently they had been drafted for a different zipper insertion technique. The Left side waistband was too short to provide a finished top of the fly shield and the Right side waistband was a bit too long.
Or maybe I got confused. But neither band fit. Period.
I don’t think I got confused but then anything is possible with my feeble mind….
I had cut and carefully labeled each piece with scotch tape. I am thinking the instructions for the zipper insertion in the pattern directions would have produced Right and Left sides that might have matched the pattern pieces (I’m guessing). But mine didn’t match.
I had to redraft the waistbands to fit and am not pleased with the way I dutifully followed the grain line markings on the pattern pieces. As drafted, you will end up with a waistband on the bias at the front and back of the pant.
No, that is just not right. It’s messy looking, for one. And the garment doesn’t need bias stretch at the fastening area in front or at the back where the pant will be pulled when you sit down.
I knew it wasn’t right but I was salvaging as much of the original HP pattern as I could. And I didn’t fix it. Next pair I’ll change it. In fact, on the next pair I might have seams in the waistband at the side seams so there’s more of a chance to adjust the fit. I won’t want my smaller version of this jean to be falling down.
So I cut a size 20, and sewed out 3/8″ of each side seam at the hip. In a non-stretch fabric this should have been the size that most closely matched my measurements with my medium thick fleece long johns. I think it is a bit too big. However, I used a stretch fabric when the pattern is for woven, non-stretch fabric. The next pair should be more of an adventure as I try to get a skinnier fit in my stretch wool denim.
The Stitchery 