A Pair of Blue Jeans

The plan was to make a classic pair of denim jeans with contrast stitching and age the denim but I decided to go for ‘clean’ dark denim jeans instead.

My denim was this medium weight denim from Ditto. I soaked my bought length in a bath of tepid water for half an hour or so prior to pre-washing in the machine. By saturating the fabric in this way its possible to avoid those white streaks that can occur when washing dark denim.

I used The Classic Trouser pattern with an amendment to the pocket. Instead of the inseam pocket I wanted the cut away pocket of a jean. To do this I took the pocket pieces from The Maxi Skirt but it would be simple enough to draw the pocket pieces required.

On the pattern I placed the skirt front pocket bag on top of the trouser front and drew the curved opening as shown above. Then cut out the fabric pieces for my jeans.

From the off cuts I did a test with my contrast top stitching thread. Above is the orange. I also tried a beige colour but I really wasn’t sure I wanted to go down this route.

Instead I settled for plain navy stitching but still using a 4mm twin needle.

Once made, I rewashed the jeans so they lost that just made look. The finished jeans are casual but clean.

For more ideas and lots of tips for sewing with denim take a look at Issue 4 of the magazine that is totally devoted to denim.