Burda Plus WOF jean's are done- finally!

Posting this pic up as I haven't had a chance to take one of these jeans on. I know that really, seeing these on a hanger, tells you not much about how the fit/style of the pattern is in real life,or how well they are made.
 Please be assured that I WILL try to remedy that soon!

Sooo what can I say? These are MUCH looser than anticipated- honestly I can say the requirement for stretch fabric was completely unwarranted in this instance as I have taken so much off centre back and side seams.

Multiple stitching lines as I tried to take in the side seams.

And below is the centre back seam which i had to take in nearly an inch at the top:

All I can think is that the measurement I'm working off have changed since I had them taken a fair while ago after surgery to my abdomen (yeah I know lazy- this has proven to me that you need to check your measurements before you sew!). I *think* I may have gone down a little in my abdomen measurement due to post-surgery swelling subsiding and organs maybe going where they are supposed to be (I'm not going to say that too loud just in case I'm totally wrong)!

OK so next on my list -after pics of jeans on - is remeasuring my hips/waist area. Let's hope the tape measure has some good news for me ;)

Kate :)

It's a [needle] wrap!

As you may know from my previous post I'm in the process of attempting to make my first ever pair of jeans. The pattern I've chosen is from Burda Plus Fashion Autumn/Winter 2010 - style 418, which they have as "pants/trousers" (even though they are jeans):

I'm skipping the weird patches on the inner thighs as I really just want a basic jeans pattern and I don't feel like that area needs any extra attention drawn to it ;)

 It's been slow going, due in part to illness (flu) but mostly due to the need to swap needles/thread every seam or two in order to do topstitching. To be honest - while I enjoy the actual jeans construction itself- the switching over all the time is driving me a bit batty. Topstitching needs to be done at certain steps during construction, you can't leave it all til the end and do it in one big batch lot :<
I'm attempting to get the old Zig Zag Palmer Princess up and running so I will have a machine for seam sewing and another for topstitching, however threading and tension settings on the old machine are still a bit of a mystery...maybe when I ave more than 5 seconds to look at it properly it will all make sense (oh yeah and read the manual- that always helps!).

In the meantime, so I don't lose track of what needle I'm using with what thread (the topstitching requires a heavier duty needle than the seams), I've taken to wrapping the needle in with the loose end of the thread on each spool:

It's not something I'd want to do with every spool of cotton I own, but for this project it works:)

Hopefully I will get some sewing in this weekend and have a bit more progress to show you!

Happy Sewing :)

Kate