A new pair of jeans for me.

[Thom Bennett]

Hi All, just finished this pair of jeans I created using the Chaudhry western jeans draft from T&C.  I have used some very soft Japanese denim, the loveliest denim material I have ever held in my hands; but, boy does it fray!  I've had 3 orders for bespoke jeans from friends.

I found the draft to be okay though I had to change the silhouette a bit to fit my flat seat.  One thing I should have done is to add a small dart in the yoke to offer a small amount of shape in that area, or so  female friend of mine told me on Saturday night.  I also didn't allow for felled seams on the inseam, crotch, seat and yoke.  I added a quarter inch at CF to allow for my slight corpulence.  Also I drafted a slight bow to the leg bottoms so they fit over boots well, though have removed this on the final pattern opting to add to the cloth when required.  My final modification to the draft was to make the Ostinelli alteration to accommodate my protruding hips and calfs.

Construction was carried out in the same way I would put a pair of wool trousers together, my only issue was "what the heck am I going to put on the back pocket".  The pocket frog I feel is a little to large so I have now changed that for the final oaktag pattern, as you can see in the pattern layover below.  Starting point was to see if I could do proper ironwork on this kind of cloth, I reasoned that it was natural fibre so should behave in a comparable way.  The ironwork turned out to be a breeze better than some of the wool I have used, I managed to impart a great shaping to the panels.  I used a combination of my lockstitch machine and hand sewing, taking me no less or longer time than normal.

C and Cs gladly received.











































I'm going to post this to the other forum too.

[posaune]

Hi Tom
For C+  very nicely done. looks good. Cleanest finshed jeans I ever saw. (besides yoke)
If you want C-
I do not like the placement of pockets. They make you look wider on the hips.
and I do not like how the fly (left side) is ? stichted. Reaches to long into the leg.
In back they could be a bit longer at CB.
But this all is only a matter of personal taste.
lg
posaune

[Thom Bennett]

Hi posaune, thanks for the your thoughts, very much appreciated. Yeh I agree with you on the fly, I had done that a long time ago and had learnt a lot since then.  I have changed it to a much better fly-piece, I didn't have any bits of denim big enough to make a new one; I forgot to mention it, probably trying to wipe it from my mind.

The pockets looked great from the side but absolutely in the wrong place, now you have mentioned it, I might take them off and re-sew them.  I have a problem keeping the back of trousers up due to my bits of annoying flab, though yes a little on the CB would be better to lift it over the flab a bit.  I am thinking of moving to suspenders for my future trousers, not jeans though. Yeh I am a little annoyed about not binding the yoke, I assume that's what you mean.

I'm getting some more denim this week to make a new pair with the finished pattern, it is about £15 per metre and I only need 1.10mtrs.

Cheers, Tom.

[hutch--]

The general fit looks good Tom, I would be inclined to have a higher waistline as this really does help to keep them up and you should be able to wear a belt rather than braces. The back pockets look a bit too low and set a bit too wide apart, my rough rule with external back pockets is 2 inched from the centre seam and 3 to 3.5 inches down from the waistband and this is one a 5.5 inch square pocket with turned bottom edges.

[Thom Bennett]

I quite like them out of the way so I can sit down without sitting on my wallet. But I am going to baste on the pockets next time and have a bit more of a play, they are 1/2" below the yoke seam.  I'll try the waistband a bit higher at the back so there is more of an angle.  The reason I keep lowering it is because I once saw this as part of the flat seat alteration, lower and straighten CB.  Maybe I should just straighten the CB point instead of lowering it too.

I have just ordered another piece of denim.

[Thom Bennett]

Here is the mod I have done for the yoke to give me a better CB, the dashed lines are the original yoke.

[Henry Hall]

Only straightening the seat angle is necessary, the actual length of the seat seam is only dependent on how high on the waist they will sit.

As for the jeans themselves, I don't think there is a pair of jeans out there so well finished on the insides. Great pattern on the patch pockets too.

[Thom Bennett]

Thanks Henry.  Yeh, I realise I must throw that out of my mind and just straighten CB; yep all gone now. 

[Henry Hall]

Where are you buying the Japanese denim from?

[Thom Bennett]

 

[Thom Bennett]

MacCulloch & Wallis (www.macculloch-wallis.co.uk)

25-26 Poland Street
London
W1F 8QN
United Kingdom


https://www.macculloch-wallis.co.uk/p/20883/denim-products/mw/japanese-denim

[lepus]

Mr. Bennett or tombennett, you must be mad making all those hand-worked buttonholes in a pair of jeans!     They don't look bad though.
My opinion is largely a repeat of what others already have said. Perhaps this:

• The fly topstitching looks very old-fashioned, as posaune said. I would topstitch it again curving to the tack and remove the old stitching; that should be possible.
• The back should be higher, it seems to me that there is room for it to end up higher in the back waist. This will also optically increase the "mass" of seat. You are not bound to have a centre back seam that is a straight line, nor a waistband that is straight, nor a waistband that runs horizontally on the body, so there may be some gain to be had there regarding seat contour. I know that that is uncommon to have in jeans, but so is doing ironwork on them, after all.
• With a higher back it will be easier to raise the back pockets so that they no longer look in danger of dropping off and can contribute to the seat aspect. Just pin them on and see where they look best and are still functional.
• Jeans side pockets can have a tendency to be pulled open after sitting down and standing up several times. A way to counteract that is to extend the pocket material to the front and catch it in the seam that attaches the fly pieces to the fronts, maybe only one layer. It would mean, in your design, a reorganisation of where the different parts end up, see sketch.

[Thom Bennett]

Thanks for the diagram Lepus I've seen that on jeans I own before, I might try that on my next pair.   Tom is fine by me.  I like buttonholes on jeans so I may as well sew them, doesn't take long and it's good practice.

I'm going to undo my nice backstitch fly and redo it, before I wear them again.  I have shortened the fly-run on the new pattern, notch seems to be low on old drafts.  I do like that though, I'll do a shorter top-stitch.  I wonder whether I forgot to hitch up the back before taking the shot?  My medication makes my immediate thoughts are a bit cloudy, I'll have a look at that, they do seem to look lower at the hollow of the seat than my wool trousers. 

As for the back pockets, I couldn't really get them much higher due to the yoke seam however I have now re-designed that aspect too.  They are parallel to the yoke seam I should have had them level with the floor instead, as in the draft, but, they will still be set low due to where one is directed to place the yoke seam.

I've just put them back on and realise I have lost a few pounds since I did my fitting a few weeks ago, they needed hoisting up though the CB is dipping slightly at the seam so will still raise that a little.

[Thom Bennett]

 Not quite sure why I did do Ironwork, probably because of my hips and calfs. 

[posaune]

No, no, ironworks you should do on jeans too. You stretch the inseams and the back crotch curve. It can be that you have to recut this area again because they grow if you have not incorporate the result of stretching in your pattern.  And I do it with demoin because it grows when worne a lot. A friend of mine do the waistband 4 cm shorter then meausred because of that. There is a "science"  you find in internet about placement and style of the back pockets. Search it. I found that the french firm draft gave a good example I recently wrote about.
lög
posaune