Sunday Sewing

I'm finally over the turkey slowdowns and am almost done with the brown jeans, just some topstitching, hemming and the button closure left to do. The Eagles were so close to serving the Patriots a slice of humble pie that I was glued more to the game than my sewing. But during commercials ;-) I took a few pics.

First up, how I add twill tape to stabilize stretch denim. I know I've mentioned doing this before but I don't recall showing photos.

In this pic, I've already sewn the waistband to the top of the jeans and to the right of the needle is the seam allowance for that. The twill tape is laid just inside the stitching line on the seam allowance, waistband side up. I move my needle a few blips to the right and sew the twill tape 1:1 to the seam allowance, with that stitching line being very close to the original waistband stitching.



The seam allowances are pressed up and the waistband facing covers them, with the twill tape encased inside. This simple little step keeps the waistband exactly as I've fitted and sewn it and prevents my jeans sliding down by mid-afternoon. (Do this at the end of the day when the tummy is fullest or you may wish you did!)




Next, a comparison shot of my yoke goof. On the right is the corrected and finished yoke. I decided to go ahead and correct/redraft it this morning. On the left is the much-too-long first try yoke. I wish I had thought to measure the yoke of a pair of RTW jeans before just eyeballing the first one, since I do have one or two pairs in my closet. I would've saved time and a replacement fabric purchase. Live and learn. But the yoke is the perfect size now so all's well that ends well.



If you click on that pic to enlarge it, you can see that I also changed the grainline for the yoke, so that the striping would chevron. I caught this uh-oh too late on the first yoke but let it slide because I knew it wouldn't really show. I'm glad I didn't bother with it since all of those pieces ended up being trashed anyway.

The final photo shows the knit I have out for after I finish the jeans. It's either going to be another Onion top with shorter sleeves or another Ottobre gathered front tee. If I decide on the Onion top, I'll need to buy some buttons. (The sticker on it reads "Prewashed," which should be self-explanatory. I use these because I don't overlock knits to prewash them.)




Now off to bed since it's back to the real world tomorrow.