Sunday, December 04, 2011

Jalie 2908 - shorts length in cream

There was a gap in my wardrobe for a pair of cream/stone coloured shorts. I decided to make the Jalie jeans pattern again when I found a stretch brushed cotton twill fabric at a local fabric store.


This is the third time I have made this pattern. However, I still learn things each time I make it. I guess it really depends on the thickness and stretchiness of individual fabrics. This cream fabric was super stretchy and really thick. Even princess struggled through topstitching the corner of the waistband. Thankfully I have found a tutorial for a different waistband method, so I will try to remember to use it (it is from page 31 of the Jeans sew along on Pattern review)
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As I was sewing these up, I thought they might end up in the bin. Everything was going wrong. I had topstitching problems (turns out I had the needle in wrong, whoops). I had cut out part of the Jalie 2909 pattern and I had to re-cut. The thick layers of fabric wouldn't fit under princess's presser feet (I found that if I dropped the feed dogs, I had a enough room to manipulate the seam into place before raising the feed dogs again). And the dramas of topstitching on a machine who's straight stitch is left of centre. I ended up using a rolled hem foot that I bought from eBay for topstitching, because it gave me a good reference.

I wasn't particularly happy with the topstitching on the pockets, but I think I got better as I went along. Being super stretchy, I had to reduce the width of the pants - they were a little too baggy with too many wrinkles at the back. The good news was I just took the side seams in another 5mm. The shorts are really comfortable, easy to move in and will be perfect for work (check out my method for whipping children into shape)
Hmm, the only thing wrong with the super stretchy fabric combine with Jalie's instruction of sewing the leg seams is there is a mighty big camel toe happening down there. Oh dear!
Yes, I just put a photo of myself with a camel toe on the web.

8 comments:

  1. Alas, I have the camel toe issue with any Jalie jeans I have attempted....and I have not come up with a good solution yet. If you find one, please, please, please post! If you check the review on PR, many of the photos, upon close inspection, show this problem as well.

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  2. I think one of the problems is sewing the inseam as one...it just creates a hump there. But there is no way of leaving the centre seams open a little to sew the crotch seam as one with the topsitching. I was pondering whether flat fell seams would make a difference.

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  3. me too - I also had camel toe with these jeans and I have never had this problem with any other pants before. Actually, the biggest problem I had with this pattern was that my thighs are too generous for this kind of generous stretch treatment. I prefer jeans with only a little stretch as they skim rather than hug.

    thanks for sharing, it made me laugh!

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  4. Oh Marie, I am laughing. I love your humor in this post. I do think the shorts look great. I have this pattern and still have not made it yet. Thanks for the warning.

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  5. The shorts look great and yes, I'm laughing out loud

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  6. You crack me up! I think your shorts look great.

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  7. The shorts look great. I love your ingenious-ness in lowering the feed dogs, I would never have thought of that.

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  8. LOL - the things you find on the WWW. I wonder how many will come here searching for camel toe ;) And I love your Karate Kid impersonation :D

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