The Misty Jeans Sewalong Winner Is....

Andie from Sew Pretty in Pink!  

Congratulations to Andie, as well as the rest of the women who were brave enough to share their pants!  Fantastic job everyone!!!

Misty Pull-On Jeans Sewalong Parade of Jeans

Friends, here is the moment you all have been waiting for (maybe)!  The Misty Pull-On Jeans Link Party is open for business.

The Details:  You can begin posting at any time.  You are welcome to post as many pair of Misty Jeans as you are willing to make.  You can post pictures until the end of the day (EDT) on November 30th, 2015.  Then the voting begins.  Voting will continue until days end (EDT) December 10th, 2015.  The winner will receive a prize packet including a $50 fabric.com gift certificate, and 3 patterns of your choice from Style Arc.  More prizes may be added as the contest continues.  Good luck, and let's see those jeans!

One more thing...please head over to the Curvy Sewing Collective and post your Misty Jean Photos on their flickr group.  Nothing would make me happier than seeing lots of jeans on the CSC, so that we can help other women overcome their fear of sewing pants!

An InLinkz Link-up

The Finished Product - Style Arc Misty Pull-On Jeans Sewalong

Friends, I am so glad to be finally posting this post!

Style Arc Misty Pull-On Jeans - Plus Size Edition

I want you all to know that I have not made any alterations to the pattern in these pictures.  This is how the jeans sewed up straight from the package (although I did size down 2 sizes).  You can see the wrinkling across the knees is still there.

Style Arc Misty Pull-On Jeans from the back

I feel pretty alright about the fit through the behind.  My sweet husband didn't notice that the building had left dust all over my back, so if you can, please ignore it.

Style Arc Misty Pull-On Jeans Knock Knee Adjustment Needed

I am not mad at the fit here in the front.  It is just as good as RTW if not a little better.  I knew going in that I need a knock-knee adjustment, but I really wanted to sew for the sewalong straight from the pattern.  I think it can be intimidating for beginners when we do a sewalong and then start making all kinds of adjustments.  I just wanted to show what you get (or should I say what I get?) without any changes.  I just want to be clear on that.

I didn't photograph the tummy area of the jeans.  Be mad at me if you want.  The fit there is pretty good.  I will be lengthening the front crotch curve a little in the future, but that is the only adjustment I will be making.  The elastic ended up coming in about an inch below my natural waist.

Style Arc Misty Pull-On Jeans Sway Back Adjustment Needed

Those smile lines at the bottom of my bum are the only issue with the fit of the back of the jeans for me.  This indicates that I need a pants swayback adjustment.  Just a minor one though.  Look at that pattern matching!  Not only did they match up from side to side, but the pattern continues on through the yoke.  Boy is my elbow sore from patting myself on the back!  My pockets have disappeared in to the fabric.

Now, with the pictures out of the way, let's just talk about these pants for a minute.  These pants are comfortable.  I imagine that these feel the way those pajama jeans from TV informercials felt.  Some of that may be the fabric I chose to use, but I have heard that same sentiment from other sewists as well.   What isn't comfortable about them is that exposed elastic waist, but in all fairness I have never liked the feel of elastic against my skin.  I will be going back and removing the elastic and encasing it with the jeans fabric.  When I make these in the future, I will only make them with encased elastic.  I do believe that I will make more of these in the future, but with all the necessary adjustments.

Let's talk about how you can get in on the fun of the Misty Jeans Sewalong.  If you search #mistyjeanssewalong on Instagram, you can see where some sewist are having discussions and posting pictures of their Misty Jeans.  Please feel free to join the conversation!

On Sunday, November 15th I am going to post a link party that you all can link your Misty Jeans to after you make them.  You will be able to post pictures of your Misty Jeans from any online picture posting source (flickr, Google Photos, etc.) as well as from your blog if you have one.  The link party will stay open for posts through November 30th.  Then, we will start live voting for the jeans on December 1st.  I can't quite tell you about the prize pack yet, but promise I will have all the details up in the link party.

So tell me friends, how are you doing on your Misty Jeans?  

Sewing the Side Seams and Adjusting the Fit - Style Arc Misty Pull-On Jeans Sewalong

Friends, it is a rainy dreary day here in Indiana.  Quite appropriate as my hubby's company announced a major lay-off looming before year's end!  My mind is whirling over this.  I will probably get in to this a little more down the road.  But today, we focus on sewing.

First some commentary about the Misty Jeans pattern.  If you have already sewn ahead, I want to know how your jeans are fitting.  I have had one sewist state that her jeans were small.  Like, can't get them past her knees small.  Aside from her, everyone else has stated that the jeans are big.  I, myself sewed the size 30, when the pattern showed I needed a size 34.  I sized down because my fabric had a good amount of stretch though.

There also seems to be some variance with how the pdf pattern is fitting.  So, please tell me what you are finding friends.

Sewing the side seams of the Misty Jeans is actually a pretty easy step.  It is just one long line of stitches on each side of the jeans.  It is so easy that I forgot to take pictures.  Since you are sewing this seam in the direction that your fabric doesn't have any stretch you can use a straight stitch for the entire seam.  I used a 2.5 stitch length.

Here is the picture I posted on Instagram after I sewed the side seams (did you see the floral denim I posted yesterday?).

The fit in the behind is pretty good.  I could still use a sway back adjustment, but for the most part, I am pleased with the fit of the backside.  In the front there is a slight amount of pulling from the crotch seam towards the upper hip.  Some would call this a diagonal smile wrinkle.  This indicates that I need to lengthen the crotch.  Because of this, when I revisit this pattern, I will add length to the height of the crotch as well as the depth.

The biggest offender here to my eyes is the saggy baggy knee look that I have going on.  This is because I have knock knees.  I was born with knock knees.  My own family teased me endlessly about the fact that I couldn't stand at attention with my ankles together.  On my next pair of Misty Jeans, I will need to make a knock knee adjustment.  The easiest way to explain this is that you redraft the lower portion of the pattern to match how your legs come down from your hips.

Way back in 2011 Colette released a Pants Fitting Cheat Sheet.  This little sheet is a wealth of knowledge for figuring out what is wrong with the fit of your pants.  Most of the adjustments are linked to tutorials that will help you perform the adjustments.  My best advice is to start from the waist and work your way down fixing the fitting issues with pants.  Once you figure out what your own personal fitting issues are, you will be able to quickly make these adjustments to every pants pattern.

Because I will not be able to make the crotch adjustments needed, I will go ahead and put the waistband in to these pants.  They are wearable as is, they just need the mentioned adjustments to look their best.  As for the legs/knee issues, I will be taking them in from just above the knee on the side seams.  This isn't a true fix to the knock knee issue, but it will help some.  If you are bow legged, you would want to take the leg in from the inseam.  If you have legs that come straight down from your hips (the way patterns are drafted) but needed to take the legs in, you would want to take the pants in equally from the inseam and the side seam.  Does this make sense?

With this pattern, it would be much easier to make adjustments before you put the waistband in the pants, just make sure that you are pulling the pants up to where they would fit with the waistband in.

I hope this portion of the sewalong hasn't been too confusing.  If you need help figuring out the adjustments that you need, don't hesitate to comment below.

Up Next:  Adding the Elastic Waist and the Finishing Touches

Sewing the Crotch Curve and Mock Fly - Style Arc Misty Pull-On Jeans Sewalong

Friends, we are in the homestretch here!  Those of you who follow me on Instagram got a little sneak peak yesterday at something that is starting to resemble jeans.

Today we are sewing the crotch curve and mock fly.  I don't really like that word crotch, but I can't really call it the lady business curve, or the down there curve.  Can I?

Our first order of business is to pin the crotch curve together.  What that means, is we want to take the two pieces that we now have, and pin them together at the seam that goes around the crotch.  This also encompasses the mock fly area.

Starting at the mock fly begin placing your pins through your two garment pieces.  As you can see in the picture above I made a little boo boo while I was cutting my fabric.  Fortunately, this nick in to the seam allowance is more shallow than the actual seam allowance.  Otherwise, I would have had to re-cut these pieces.

As we pin our way around the curve, we want to make sure that all of our notches are aligned.  I like to put pins at each of the notch points, or in the case of a double notch like the one above, I will just pin in between the two notches.  

Can I just talk about something off topic for a sec?  In every photo of my thumb, it looks like I have a dirty thumb nail.  I don't.  I don't know why it looks this way either, except that I have really deep nail beds that have a very dark red line between the pink and the white part of my nail.  But the rest of my nails don't seem to look that way.  Anyway, I just wanted to say something about it, because it really bothers me.

This photo is of the area where the two inseams come together through the curve.  I always push the seam allowances in opposite directions so that I am not sewing through 6 layers of material at this juncture.  I like to put my pin straight down through the two inseams so that when they are sewn they will line up nicely.

I forgot to take an up close shot, but I also made sure that the seam of the yoke lined up evenly so that it will match after sewing these two pieces together.

At this point we are ready to sew this seam.  You are going to want to use your lightning bolt stitch here because this is probably the most stretchy seam of the entire sew.  This seam is sewn with a 3/8 inch seam allowance. If you are like me and have paranoia about only having one line of stitching holding your arse in, go ahead and sew a second row of stitching at the 1/4 inch line of the seam allowance.

Once you have finished your yoke should look something like this.

Now can you read the word that is printed on this fabric?  Friends, I am going to have the word WASH all over my arse.  I have mixed emotions about this! Thing is, you really and truly don't see it in the print, but the camera lens picks it up like crazy!

 Hopefully the outside of your crotch curve seam looks something like this.  If you are new to sewing and your seams are off by a 1/4 inch or so, don't beat yourself up over it.  My best advice is that you have to think about lining things up where the seam allowance is instead of at the edge of the fabric.  Does that make sense?  Remember too, hopefully no one is going to be getting down and inspecting your crotch curve seam.  So unless you sit in a very un-ladylike manner, no one will ever see this seam.

Serger Sewists - IF that is a big capital IF, you are really comfortable with your serger this is a great seam to sew with it.  I would personally fold the mock fly back and start sewing at the start of the crotch curve that meets with the mock fly, and sew out to the yoke end.  Then, I would flip my garment and sew from where the mock fly meets the crotch curve up to the waist.  Unless you have mad serger skills, I WOULD NOT attempt to sew this as one long seam.  Only you know your limits, and you could mock this seam up on some practice fabric and see how you do.  Just remember once the knife cuts the fabric, there is no going back.

Now on to the mock fly.  The first thing that we want to do is mark the sewing line from the waist to the end of the fly curve.  You want this line to be parallel to the straight edge of the mock fly and to join to the stitch line for the rest of the crotch curve.

A good ruler and tailor's chalk are important tools for sewing.  A box of multi color tailor's chalk is relatively inexpensive and will last you for a very long time!

Once you have your line drawn, go ahead and pin the fly area together.  You don't want your fabric to shift while you are sewing this line.

Now, sew a straight line ending a few stitches in to where your chalk line meets the crotch curve.  I used a straight stitch here, because these stitches are not going in the direction of the stretch of my fabric.  I used a 2.5 stitch length, because I wanted a tighter/smaller stitch for this application.

Hopefully, in the picture above you can see that the stitching ends a few stitches in to the crotch curve seam.

Now, with our mock fly spread open with the right side of the garment facing down, we want to press the mock fly towards the right.

Again, using our clapper here will help get a nice crisp seam, so if you have one, use it.  If you don't have one, might I suggest a heavy book.

Once the mock fly is pressed flat it will look something like this.  Is your fabric fraying like mine is?

When we flip the fabric over to the other side (the right side), you should have  a crisp seam.

So that we know where to stitch, you want to feel the edge of your mock fly through the fabric, and then use your chalk to mark along the edge.

Now let's put our double needle back in to our sewing machine.  The instructions did not call for a double needle here, but I like the continuity of it, and I like the way the double needle is going to catch the edge of the raw fabric.

I didn't pin the beginning of the seam here, but I did want to throw a couple of pins in to the curve, because that is where the fabric is most likely to shift.  I placed the stitch/chalk line, just to the right of my left twin needle.

Remember to stitch forward and back to anchor the seam, and then go ahead and sew all the way to edge of the mock fly, also ending with a reverse and forward stitch.  It may take a little practice to end your stitching right at the edge of the fly seam.  Don't worry about it.  Again, who is going to be down there inspecting your sewing prowess?

This is what the finished mock fly will look like from the front.  If you wanted to make this look even more like a real fly, you could add some top stitching down the straight seam of the fly, and even a bar tack.  Those are all design details you can decide about on your own.

This is what the back side of the mock fly looks like when sewn with the twin needle.  See how the raw edge is encased between the two rows of stitches?  That is why I chose to use the twin needle and used the alignment that I chose with the stitch/chalk line and the left needle.  Does it all make sense now?

That is all for this step, Friends.  I can't believe that this project is almost finished, can you?  Don't worry if you are running behind, because obviously I am too!  You are going to have until November 15th to get your Misty Jeans made if you want to try to get in on the prize action.

Up Next:  Sewing the Side Seams

Facing the Pockets and Joining the Pocket Edges - Style Arc Misty Pull-On Jeans Sewalong

Hello, Friends.  The plague still exists in our home, however I feel like enough of the fog has cleared that I will still be able to post a semi-intelligible bit of instruction, so here goes:

Initially, we are working with the front pattern pieces, and the pocket facing pieces.

 

With right sides together we are going to stitch each pocket facing to it's respective front pattern piece.

Your notches will help you to remember this, but this seam has a 1/4 inch seam allowance instead of the normal 3/8 inch that most of the rest of the pattern has.  Style Arc tends to use a 1/4 inch allowance on what they call internal seams.

I am still using the lightning bolt stretch stitch here, because the bottom of this faux pocket will need to be able to stretch.

Serging sewists- this is a great application for your serger, just make sure that you follow the 1/4 inch seam.

Once the seam has been sewn, we need to flip the pocket facing to the inside and press it.  Remember to use your silk setting because of the lycra.

This is what the back side will look like after you press the pocket facing to the inside of the garment.

I ended up shearing my fabric at this seam.  For the life of me, I am not sure how this happened.  There are some thin spots in this fabric so I think that it is probably because I just sewed in the perfect spot.  Doesn't leave me real confident that the jeans are going to contain my arse though.  Since I will be twin needle sewing this seam, I am not going to worry about the sheared spot.  The twin needle edge should give me plenty of hold.

Here we twin needle the edge of the pocket.  I line the edge up with the 1/4 inch mark on my presser foot.

Once the edge has been sewn it looks all wonky and rippled.  But, with the magic of a good iron and clapper...

We are able to press the seam back to it's original shape.

Here is what the back of this seam will look like once it is finished.

Now, we move on to the next step which is attaching the front pockets to the pocket facings.  We will need the piece that we just finished working on along with the left and right front pockets.

We need to pin the pockets to their pocket facings.  Remember that your coin pocket goes on the left side, and the plain one goes on the right side.

Make sure that your pocket notches line up the notches in the pocket facings.

Now we are going to sew this seam with a 3/8 inch seam allowance.  To me, this seam would be considered an internal seam, however the seam allowance marked on the pattern is clearly 3/8 inch for this seam.

Serger Sewists- This is a great seam to use your serger as well, just remember to jump back to using 3/8 seam allowance, and make sure you don't accidentally run your front pattern piece through the knife as you are sewing!  Oh the horror!!!

After we have sewn the pockets to the facings, we need to the pocket at the side seam and the waist seam.  Think of this like you are closing the pocket up so that when you sew the side seams and the elastic in to the waist, the pocket won't get bunched or move out of place at these seams.  I used a straight stitch, and sewed these just shy of 3/8 of an inch.  You want your stitches to start just prior to the point where the pocket starts, and stitch on past where the pocket ends.  I went about 3 stitches past, and started about 3 stitches prior.  I used a 3.0 stitch length.  

Once, I was finished this is what the front of the left pocket and left front piece looked like.

This is a view of the back of the left front pocket and left front pattern piece sewn together.

And here is a picture of the finished right pocket sewn to the right front pattern piece.

Friends, I hope I was able to keep everything straight through my brain fog and cold medicine stupor.  Tell me, how are your Misty Jeans coming along?  Let me know if you have any questions.  

I will try to get one post up each day until I have caught back up with the schedule.

Up Next:  Sewing the Inseam

Sewing the Back Pockets - Style Arc Misty Pull-On Jeans Sewalong

Friends, the first week of the Misty Jeans Sewalong is drawing to a close.  Are you making progress?  Have you even started?  I know that some of you have already got your jeans ready and are just waiting to see what kind of goodies might be coming in the end.  We will get to that soon enough.

For today, let's talk pockets.  Specifically the ones that are going to be on your behind.  As Megan pointed out a few posts back you may want to check the size of the pockets in comparison with some of your RTW jeans to see if they are to your liking.  You can easily size them up or down with a clear ruler.  Or trace the one's you like from your RTW jeans and then add a 3/8 inch seam allowance.  Let me know if you need help understanding how to do this, and I will break it down.

Today's step states, "Press back the seam allowance on the back pockets, stitch across the top with a twin needle stitch, pin the pocket to the back as marked on the pattern, once in place stitch around the pocket with a twin needle stitch."

Back Pocket with Top Edge Pressed Down

First thing you need to do is press the top of the seam allowance down for the pocket.  Remember only the Silk setting on your iron, and use your clapper, if you have one, to get a crisp fold.  Hold off on pressing the other sides of the pocket.

Twin Needle Stitching the Top Edge of the Back Pocket

Now, your twin needle should still be threaded and ready to go from our last post.  Go ahead and sew across the top of the pocket with the twin needle to get a nice clean finish to the top of your pocket.

Pinning Back the Pressed Seam Allowances on the Pockets

Better View of the Twin Needle Stitching at the Top of the Pockets

Now let's go ahead and press back the rest of the seam allowances.  I pressed the two bottom allowances first before pressing the sides in.  I feel like this gives a more neat appearance.  If you have a bulky denim, you may want to trim your seam allowances at the corners, just don't trim them too aggressively.

Now, this is the point that the way I do this differs from how it is laid out in Style Arc's directions.  When sewing pants/jeans I will finish them, put them on and then decide where to place the back pockets.  I have even learned to do this with welt pockets or dummy welts, because there have been some real placement issues.  For the sake of this sewalong, I am going to follow Style Arc's instructions, but then explain my method at the end.  Mmmm kay?

I told you not to mark your pocket placement back in the beginning, but now I am telling you, lay your pattern on top of your pattern piece and mark those pockets (or wait for my other method).

Pocket Placement Marked with Chalk

I pin the seam allowance under at all the corners, and then go ahead and pin the pocket to the pants at the two upper corners and at the center bottom of the pocket.

Pockets Pinned in Place

Back Pockets Pinned in Three Anchoring Points

The reason that Style Arc has you sew the pockets on at this point in construction is because you are carrying on with your twin needle eliminating the need to switch back and forth so much, and pockets are easier to sew in to your garment when your garment is still in the flat.  Do you all know what in the flat means?  In the flat is before you start sewing all the seams together that take your garment from 2 dimensional (flat) to 3 dimensional (having complex curves so as to envelop our curvy bodies).  Prime examples of seams that make garments 3 dimensional are inseams, outer/side seams, and crotch curves.  In shirts your 3 dimensional seams would be darts, sleeves...I hope that you get the idea.

Twin needle sewing of pockets can be a little tricky.  Most of us are used to pivoting our garment around the needle when the sewing takes a turn, but you can not leave a twin needle down and pivot since there are two needles there instead of one.

So you can either sew your twin needle edges as individual sides, or you can carefully lift your presser foot and pivot your fabric without the benefit of the needle being down in the fabric to hold your pivot point.

To sew them as individual sides, you will sew each edge as an individual seam, reversing your stitches at the beginning and end to anchor your thread.

First Seam Sewn

Here we have the first line of stitching finished.  Remember to reverse stitch at the beginning and end to anchor your stitches.  It is fine to reverse stitch when you are using a twin needle.

Aligning Needle to Start Second Seam

Line the right twin needle up with the right line of stitches.  You will have overlap on the left side stitches, which is what you want.

Second Seam Finished

This is what the first two finished seams look like.  You want to continue sewing these individual seams all the way around the pocket (remember not to sew the top of the pocket shut).

Finished Pocket

This is how your finished pocket will appear.  You can see where the inside row of stitching overlapped while the outside row lined up and connected to the previous row of stitches.

Example of Both Seam Methods - The outside set of Stitches is Pivoted and The Inside set of Stitches is Individual Seams

To sew the pockets with the pivoting method, you simply sew down one side to the lower edge (still anchoring at the beginning with a back and forth stitch), lift your presser foot and carefully turn your fabric so that the right line of stitching stays in line with the right needle, but your presser foot is lined up to sew in the direction of the next seam line.  Continue doing this as you work your way around the pocket until all the edges (except for the top) are sewn.

Starting to Stitch at the Top of the Back Pocket

Sewing Down to the Point at Which the Fabric will need to Pivot

Serger Sewists - You can do all this work on your serger if you have a coverstitch function.  I highly recommend putting your pockets on at this stage if you intend to use the coverstitch, because it will be monumentally harder to do once the inseam and side seams or outer seams are sewn.

Both Back Pieces with Back Pockets and Yokes Attached

We are all finished with this step.  Yay!  Our pants are starting to look like something that might actually be pants.  Albeit wavy ripply pants.  On October 23rd - Adding the Elastic Waistband and Finishing Touches, I will give a tutorial of how to set your back pockets once you have mostly finished the garment for those of you who would like to wait and place them where you personally would like them to be.

If any of you are sewing along and are at this step, please let me know how it is going and don't hesitate to mention any tips that you have or ask any questions.  Also, did you notice that my fabric has a word written all over it?  It wasn't until I was reviewing these pictures that I caught that.

Next step:  Sewing the Coin Pocket

Side Note:  I need to take my DSLR camera to be cleaned so I apologize for the mix of camera and phone pics.  My sensor is having a hard time focusing in certain lighting situations right now.