Dawn Jeans in Linen Look Canvas

In the early 90's I had a pair of linen jeans that would best be described now as high waisted and straight legged.  I loved those jeans so when I came across a piece of heavy weight linen in The Fabric Store, Megan Neilsen Dawn Jeans came to mind.  After a little bit of thought though, I became concerned that the seams would pull on them because linen is quite a loose weave.

It was shortly after this, that I was gifted a piece of linen look canvas in the most gorgeous shade of chocolate brown.  I was excited to make up my dream pants and threw my fabric into the washing machine to get it prepped.   When I pulled it out though, I discovered that it had marbled something terrible and there were now big fade marks all over it.  There was simply no way I could cut around it.  I really don't like wasting fabric though, so I decided to reverse the fabric and use the natural colour on the reverse as my front side.

I had a little bit of Liberty Poplin in my scrap bin and this became my pockets and ended up being a binding on the waistband as well.  I don't usually bind my waistbands on jeans but my machine hated this fabric with a passion and fought me all the way with the top stitching. Apparently it doesn't like canvas even when I use a fresh needle.  I won't be sewing with this again!

As far as sizing goes, these pants are quite true to size.  I did have to let the side seams out a bit so will keep this in mind for next time.  I may also lower the rise a smidge next time as well but overall I am pretty happy with the fit on these.  What doesn't make me so happy is the amount of give in the canvas. It has zero give, unlike denim that has some.  Next time I make them, I will use actual denim!  This time I made the straight leg but I am quite keen to try out some of the other views as well.




















Each year I like to make myself a couple of fresh tee shirts and this year is no exception.  As part of this years batch, I made a Tessuti Alexa tee in some lovely linen look cotton that I picked up on the sale table at Fabric Vision.  It is a happy coincidence that it goes nicely with my new Dawn Jeans.