Jamie: My New Jeans

Hey, I finished my jeans yesterday!  They're not 100% perfect, but I'm very happy with them.  They certainly fit me better than my best-fitting RTW jeans, so I'm on the right track.

I took gazillions of pictures of my fitting changes, in-progress sewing shots, and finished inside and outside shots of the jeans.  But I know you guys - I know that what you really want to see is how they look on a body (mine).  So for once, I won't tease you, and will show you the good stuff first.

Get ready for LOTS of pictures - I wore two outfits, and tried to show the jeans from as many angles as possible.  I will say that I used very dark denim, so some of the details aren't easy to see, but I think these will give you a good idea of the fit.  I'll address my fitting changes in a separate post, but the basic info is that I used a size 42 pattern to fit my low hip/high thigh, and refined from there.  My fabric is a 10.5 oz. "heavyweight" denim of 98% cotton and 2% lycra.

Here I'm trying to replicate an inspiration outfit I re-pinned from Ami.  Sadly, I can't get to the original pin.  But it's slim jeans, lace top, red pointy flats and leopard clutch - mine is a Stitch Parade Original :-)

Now on to fit:  here we are from the front:

From the side:

From the other side:

And from the back:

Those wrinkles on the back of the leg seem normal to me.  Should I worry about them and try to get rid of them?  They don't actually bother me - all my other jeans do the same.  Nor do the remaining tiny whiskers at C-level (which I'm exaggerating here):

I tried them rolled up too.  I'm not sure I love that look though, because of the seam in the center of the leg.

That top was pretty long, so I switched it out for my new Continental - a length of top I'm likely to wear more often with these jeans.  One of the things I really like about the Jamies is that they are "low rise" but not super low.  I was worried they'd be much lower, but they hit in a spot I really like - not too high up toward the waist, nor too low on the hip.

Also, I'm wearing the new shoes I bought myself for my birthday :-)  And please to excuse the hair - I'm getting it cut THIS AFTERNOON!

I can easily bend over to unroll my pant legs:

And when I stand back up, I don't have to yank up my pants, which is a very welcome change.

I haven't worn these yet except for these pictures, since today is a housework (and haircut) day, but so far they seem to be very comfortable.  The feeling of having a seam down the front of the leg takes a bit of getting used to, but it's not bothersome.  I'll be interested to see how these loosen up with wear.  Also, I'm not sure you can tell, but I didn't make the lower part of the leg super skinny.  I'd added on width per a couple of comments and reviews saying the calf was snug, with the thought I would skinny it down during fitting.  But I really liked the look of the less skinny calf on me - I think it helps balance out my leg, since my thighs are so much bigger than my calves.  I look a little less like a clothes pin, and more like a curvy lady :-)

I'm definitely going to be making more of these, however, I'm going to follow the suggestion of a couple other bloggers and wear them around for a while before deciding if I need any further fit fixes.

So that's two out of my three February goals done.  Next up:  the Lola dress!