Ginger Gingers

 

I happened to be in Lincraft buying a zip and they were having a 50% off fabric sale.  Now, I don't usually buy fabric from Lincraft but when I found coloured denim with a slight stretch, I made an exception.  The lure of coloured denim was just a little too much to resist.  After all, the denim I found was stretch, but not too stretchy and of quite a heavy weight.  How could I go wrong I mused?  Time will tell on that front.  I left that shop with 3 pieces in 3 different colours.

The first piece is this lovely mustard colour that I really wanted to trial a pair of high waisted Ginger Jeans with.  Notice I said trial?  While I haven't made the high waisted version before, I have made enough low rise one's to have a pretty good idea as to how these fit and the alterations I needed to make. 

I cut a size 12 like my measurements indicated I should and added a knock knee adjustment and a scoop crotch like my low rise version and then really just went for it.  As a few others had done, I increased the back leg piece by 1.5cm at the yoke seam and reduced the yoke depth by 1.5cm also.

I had a business shirt of my husbands that became a pocket lining. I initially added a pocket stay but was a little concerned about the lack of stretch in my denim so just modified it to a standard jean pocket at the last minute.

I had to make a few extra alterations to these jeans on the fly because the denim required more fitting than usual in this quite rigid fabric.  I did a thin thigh adjustment, ran the side seams in to a size 10 and then lowered the entire rise by 1cm. I also had to remove a wedge from the yoke at the back waist.  I had already added extra width to the legs when I cut these jeans because I was hoping to achieve more of a straight leg style than drafted.  I could have used the stove pipe leg pattern pieces but really couldn't be bothered printing and taping more paper pieces so I just added 1cm to each side of the leg pieces grading to nothing at the mid thigh.  This mean't I was able to adjust the legs to suit my full calf muscles.  For future pairs I have now adjusted the pattern to include a full calf adjustment.

Because the fabric was quite thick, I chose not to interface the waistband but instead just sew twill tape to the top of the band.  I am not sure this was a good idea because I find now that I need to iron the waistband after washing to flatten it out and I do find that it does roll a little when wearing.

I do love the finished jeans but fear the colour will wash out of this fabric quite quickly.  It is a very vibrant mustard colour so depending on how evenly it washes out, this may not be a problem.  Only time will tell on this front.  As for the high rise finish, I absolutely love it.  My Dawn jeans I would consider super high rise because the waistband sits above the  waist.  This high waist Gingers  sits right on the waist .  Being short waisted I prefer on the waist to above the waist, although I do love the cut of the Dawn jeans I think I prefer this pattern.

To go with my Ginger Gingers, I made a Tessuti Alexa Tee.  I upsized the pattern this time to achieve a  more relaxed fit.  The fabric is a rayon lycra that my daughter kindly donated to me.  I finished the hems on my coverstitch machine.  Because the fabric has a tendency to tunnel when hemmed I added hem tape to the bottom before stitching. 

Jeans
Pattern (used before) $0.00
Fabric $15.00
Zip $3.00
Button/Rivets (from stash) $0.00
Total $18.00

Tee

Pattern (used before) $0.00

Fabric (gifted) $0.00

Total $0.00