Tag Archives: non-denim

Tropical Jeans

Unlike most of my sewing projects, these tropical jeans never actually entered the UFO (unfinished object) stage! I’d originally purchased a metre of this fabric to make a t-shirt, but then realised that all my t-shirt patterns required either horizontal and vertical stretch, or 40% stretch as a minimum. This fabric only had 20% horizontal stretch, so it was destined to turn into a pair of non-denim Real Deal Jeans* (can you guess this is my favourite trouser pattern at the moment?).

I will admit I fluffed the buttonhole completely – I started far too close to the edge and once I’d opened the buttonhole, I realised it just wasn’t going to be practical to use.

So, to save trying to somehow redo the waistband with the bit of fabric I had left, I decided to just zigzag over the failed buttonhole (I’ll probably add some ribbon or something over that at a later point), and add poppers instead!

Unfortunately I didn’t put the popper over far enough, so the zip is visible (oops!)

The poppers still make the waistband nice and comfy, and although I haven’t (yet) added any belt loops, I might wear a belt with these trousers just for added reassurance that the poppers won’t suddenly unpop while I’m wearing them!

I do love the way I was able to be creative with my fabric placement for the back yoke – given this was all squeezed out of a metre of fabric, I didn’t think I’d be able to be quite so picky with my layout!


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Pattern:  Real Deal Jeans* by WinterWear Designs*
Fabric: Cotton Elastane from Fashion Fabrics

Making my own Jeans (UFO)

I’ve always wanted to be brave enough to make my own jeans. In fact, this year I added the Real Deal Jeans* by WinterWear Designs* to my 9 to Try in order to persuade myself to pluck up the courage to attempt them!

I decided that denim was going to be tricky on my Janome 525s – I’d struggled with it not feeding through evenly if there’s a bulky seam, and felt that denim would be a step too far as a first attempt. Instead, I found some lightweight cotton elastane fabric which looked like it might work well. I bought a metre, expecting it to be enough for a pair of shorts, seeing as the pattern says you’d need 3 metres.

As luck would have it, being petite in height and a smaller size, meant I could actually fit an entire pair of jeans on this metre of fabric!

Top stitching isn’t my favourite pastime, but I’ve made a special effort to make this as neat as possible…. even though most of it isn’t visible against the patterned fabric!


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Pattern:  Real Deal Jeans* by WinterWear Designs*
Fabric: Cotton Spandex from Sewing Studio