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Monday 19 February 2018

Jeeches?

I've never owned a pair of blue jeans in my life. I think I may have tried some on at some point and decided they were horribly uncomfortable, or it may just be because I've always preferred plain black pants.
But sometime last year I found a decent sized chunk of denim in the remnants bin for a very low price, and I bought it because the thought of making breeches out of it amused me. I find it rather silly that people call denim shorts "jorts", and denim printed leggings "jeggings", so I am calling these jeeches.
 
I used the same pattern as for my grey wool breeches, and foolishly started them at the same time, so I ended up having to make the same alteration to the knee on both pairs.

I've been intrigued by the bizarre front flap pockets in the breeches of this red suit for a long time, so I put a similar one in these. They're a bit narrower than the original ones, and I don't know what I'll use them for, but it was good exercise. It was a bit troublesome to put together but came out well enough.
Most of my watch pockets are too shallow, so for this one I attached the waistband in several steps to allow the pockets in the waistband to hang down into the front flaps.
I sewed the front section onto just the outside layer of the flap,
then sewed the rest of the waistband onto both layers.

My lining fabric is a resist- dyed blue and white cotton from the stash. I don't know where it came from, but I think it might be something Mama dyed years ago.
The buttonholes are by machine, and the 4 waistband eyelets are by hand.
When I first started these I intended to do the yellow topstitching that regular jeans have, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that to an otherwise perfectly fine looking pair of indigo breeches. This is also the reason I put brassy buttons on the waistband, but covered ones at the knees.
They have the same fit problems as the previous pair (A bit too tight in the front of the crotch, and too much fullness in the upper back) but the pattern has been altered now, so hopefully the next pair won't have these problems!




Another reason I didn't use brassy buttons on the knees
is that I only have silver coloured buckles.

Overall I find them very sturdy, and I think they are good breeches for historical outdoorsy things.

Sunday 4 February 2018

Black Cotton Fall Front Pants

I am back up to 3 pairs of pants! Which will soon return to 2 pairs of pants, because the pair I re-cut is wearing out quite badly. (The other pair from the fashion show wore out months ago.) The striped ones aren't in great shape either, but at least they have no holes yet.
So I still need more pants, but I will make more soon!
When I organized my patterns last year I found no fewer than six pants patterns, and none of them were labeled. Bad Vince! How very foolish I was with my patterns two years ago! I have gone back to labeling them now.
I got rid of my six unlabeled ones and made a new pants pattern with a fall front. I made it around the same time as I altered my breeches pattern, so it has the same problem of way too much fullness in the back. I've fixed it on both patterns now though, and I did trim the back of these pants down before sewing the waistband on.
I overcompensated way too much when making this pattern.
Lowering the back by 2cm helped a lot.
The pants are made from black cotton twill. The waistband is lined in a relatively thin green canvas and interfaced with the usual double layer of hair canvas and cotton canvas. The pants are fully lined in unbleached cotton muslin.
There is one watch pocket, on the right side, which I think is too shallow for an actual watch. But I can put spare change or buttons or something small in there.
I have so many lonely buttons in my stash, and buttons that are only in groups of 2 or 3, so I used 3 different kinds of metallic buttons for these pants. I think it's a good use for them, since they won't show under a waistcoat, and it's sad that they get so few opportunities to be sewn onto things.
The buttonholes are by machine.
It's the same sort of small white shoelace as I used for my wool breeches.
I found 4 of them in the drawer.
The back of the waistband has the same construction as breeches, with 4 hand sewn eyelets and a cord to adjust the gap. I like this method of pants-adjusting much better than modern belts and belt loops.
I hemmed them with tiny hand stitches, which don't show on the outside because they're only on the lining.
Unfortunately they don't fit perfectly. They're quite comfortable, but they have similar weird crotch wrinkles to the breeches. I think I've fixed this problem on the pattern, but won't know for sure until I sew it up again. Which will hopefully be soon!
My one other complaint is that I didn't make the corner pocket bags out of black material, and so there's a tiny bit of white peeking out. But it doesn't bother me, I'll just try to remember not to do it next time.
Mismatched, but symmetrical! And at least the front 5 buttons are all the same size.
I haven't worn these outside yet, but I expect the lining will make them a great deal warmer than my unlined pants!