How to Sew Jeans: Jean Construction Tutorial

to begin your jeans pre-wash and dry your fabric press it fold it in half and then line up your fabric on grain you're going to need to cut a waistband belt loops back jeans pocket facing front pant noting the fly extension on one side that will be cut off on the other yoke back pockets fly shield and fly facing coin pocket which is optional and then your pocket bags and a cotton that is woven you'll also need a metal zipper jeans top stitching thread jeans needles rivets and jean tacks note that that zipper needs to be longer than the facing now you'll begin cutting your fabric note that you're only going to need one of the fly facing one of the fly shield one of the coin pocket as well as one of the waistband and one of the belt loops everything else will be cut into two clip your notches add an eighth inch seam allowance next it's really helpful to use a piece of chalk that will come off to mark your right and left fronts you're going to trim away 5 8 of an inch or a half an inch depending on your pattern and you will only leave that facing on the other side next go over to your machines with your juke you'll thread that in normal thread with the jeans needle you'll use top stitching thread over at your home machine and an edge foot you can use the top stitching thread in the top and bottom and also serger thread and the color that you would like to be serged begin with your back pockets if you would like to do any embroidery you'll need to do this prior to cutting these out otherwise you can mark a half inch and one inch on the top edge of the pocket you'll fold those down and then press them we're going to stitch this first and then we'll be stitching the rest of it after we press it using the edge foot and a length four stitch you don't need to back stitch and you're going to do two rows of stitching you can really get creative here with whatever style that you'd like i like to do my first row about an eighth of an inch away from the turned edge and the second row at a quarter of an inch away from that first line again whatever you would like to do is is up to you next i really like to cut out a piece of oak tag and lay it on top of the pocket this makes pressing a lot easier if you have chipboard that's really great too but if the paper is too lightweight it will not work after you've got good creases you're going to come back onto the other side of the pocket and press it be really patient with yourself here this takes a little bit of time you can also use pressing tools such as sausage rolls hams or clappers to press down the pockets next you're going to go to your original pattern and using an awl you are going to mark the placement of where you are going to be putting your pocket sometimes i like to put chalk marks on there as well so that i can really see clearly where it is that i'm going next you're going to place the pockets on both of the backs of your pants and then i use between three and five pins coming from the center and pinning out which is a little bit different than normal to keep the pocket in place next you're going to start at one of the top edges of the pocket beginning and ending with the back stitch and keeping the needle in the pocket as you pivot we'll be doing two rows of stitching and we do this continuously at each corner make sure that you are sticking the needle into the fabric and pivoting the edge foot is incredibly helpful for this it's not totally necessary but if you're beginning it will make it so that the distance between your stitch and the edge of the material is exact once you get to the top you're going to cross over a little more than a quarter of an inch and then you're going to angle down so this will be a little bit wider than normal and again this is kind of up to you it can get a little decorative and you can put your own design style in here as well remove the pins as you go and make sure that you're pivoting carefully once you're nearing the end stay an equal distance away from the original top stitching line but then when you get to the top you're going to veer off a little bit so that it comes out and swoops a little bit wider you're going to pivot and end with a back stitch you can also bar tack this top edge if you would like as well now we're going to place the yokes it's really important that you match up your notches as one side of the yoke is smaller than the other and if you do this the wrong way where the big side is on the out seam instead of the center back it's not going to cover your back side next at your regular sewing machine using regular thread you're going to stitch at the allotted seam allowance beginning and ending with the back stitch and checking to make sure that the edges line up now you'll serge the yokes and the top of the back pant together give this a good press first on the technical back and we'll be pressing this up some patterns will have you press this down and that's say okay after you've done this really well on both sides you are going to serge the crotch seam on one side only it's only going to be on the left back side do not serge the other one i did this accidentally without filming so you'll notice that there's already a surge line on here but that's okay just go ahead and search that one side and then move on to the next step on both the right and back pant leg you're going to align the needle position so that it's an eighth of an inch away from the ditch using the edge foot and top stitch two rows of stitching now you need to be consistent with this distance i like to use a quarter inch but whatever you choose whether it's a quarter or 3 8 or an eighth just be consistent next i'm going to lay down the serged pant leg and then the unsurge pant leg on top of each other note that they already have the pockets and yolks sewn together pin them at the crotch seam and at the top but you're going to offset them you're going to offset them by the width of the surge which is approximately a quarter of an inch and then make sure that you're pinning right into that top stitching line at the yoke this will make it so that it lines up nice when you stitch them together the reason why we offset this is because then the crotch seam is going to be able to match up with the front you're going to have to tug on the back crotch seam just a little bit to make it fit but it will fit give yourself plenty of pins for this step to make sure that everything holds shape and then you are going to line up the serged edge of your garment with your allotted seam allowance in this case it's one half of an inch so instead of the cut edge i'm going to be using the serged edge as my seam allowance this is going to add about an eighth of an inch extra to the back but it really comes out in the wash and works out beautifully at the iron you're going to press the crotch seam all the way over to the side so that the serging is covering the raw edge alternatively you can do a flat felled seam for the crotch seam again i press on the technical back first and the technical front and i'm going to make sure that that searched edge is covered and that my top stitching lines on the yoke are matching pretty nicely using the edge foot and your top stitching length which is about a length of four you're going to do two rows of stitching first you're going to line up with the ditch and then once you get to the bottom you're going to come back up make sure that you don't have any creases like that in your seam and if you do just open them right up and then line up the edge of the presser foot and move your needle position over so that you're keeping a consistent seam allowance again i'm doing a quarter of an inch most of the top stitching that you're going to be doing on this project will be doubled now that you've got your back pretty much done you're going to go to the out seams and you're going to serge the out seams now it's important that you start from the top and move down to the bottom sometimes the serger tends to make the leg of your pant grow you'll also be serging the crotch seam on your fronts start by serging that little edge and then pulling it back and if you need to remove or disengage your blade at this point that is okay because then you're going to come in and search this little section it's a little bit tricky but if you move the fabric out of the way and take your time you're going to do just fine next you're going to repeat this on the other front crotch seam that does not have the fly extension clip your threads and now we're going to start working on the zipper so with your fly shield you're going to fold this in half and then you're going to use a quarter of an inch of seam allowance and begin and end with the back stitch just stitching that bottom curved edge some of the patterns might be straight and not curved and that's also all right then you're going to turn this right side out and give it a good press after pressing it with the wrong sides together you're going to serge the straight raw edge together so that the piece becomes one shield at this point you can also search the straight and curved edge of your fly facing this will be the single piece again take your time around those corners so that you don't cut anything off that you don't want to now you're going to measure three quarters of an inch away from that raw edge of the fly shield so that it aligns with the zipper teeth so three quarters inch away from the edge of the fly shield you're going to pin on the opposite side and it's also important to make sure that you are lining up that bottom edge right there so that it is three quarters of an inch above it's helpful if you can make it so that the zipper head goes off and above the fly shield it's fine if that doesn't happen but it will make your life easier then stitching close to the zipper teeth about an eighth of an inch you're going to stitch just to the bar stop at the bottom make sure that you do not go onto the tape you need to leave that free-flowing now we are going to line up the fly shield and zipper with that fly extension on the right leg if you pin it there and then you go over to the iron you'll be able to press it you're also going to be able to mark where you need to stop stitching which is right where the zipper stop ends remove that and now you're going to put a pin right where that zipper stop needs to end and we're going to be stitching the crotch seam at your machine you're going to use your half inch or 5 8 inch seam allowance whatever your pattern is allotting and you're going to stitch just to the pin that's once again going to be where the bottom stop of your zipper goes we don't want to go past that clip your threads and make sure that you lined up with that chalk mark that you just placed now you're going to press the crotch seam open you'll also be pressing the fly extension over so that it lines up with the crotch seam on the other side of the pants on the right side of the pant that edge that you just pressed under you're going to line up the top edge of the fly shield with the top edge of the front pant you'll line this up about a sixteenth of an inch away from the zipper teeth and you're going to pin it in place note that every time that you're stitching the zipper you're only going to be stitching to that bottom stop you will not be stitching further head over to your bernina or your top stitching machine and you're going to use the edge foot to stitch as close to that turn as you can removing the pins as you go once you get to that bottom stop once again you're going to stitch as close as you can to the turn and then back stitch clip your threads and now we're going to move over to the other side with the fly facing you'll match it up with the left top waist of the front pant and line up the raw edge with the serged edge of the pant once again you're only going to stitch until that point where there is no longer any stitching i like to actually stitch this from the other side and so if you want to pin it from the other side you can do that as well head on over to your regular thread machine and use your seam allowance to stitch exactly to that point and then back stitch so you're just going to be kissing or meeting up with that point but not going past it next you're going to press the seam allowance in towards the fly facing first on the front and then on the back and then you're going to fold it over so that it's flush either that or you can roll the edge under about a sixteenth of an inch so instead of seeing that rolled edge on the outside it's rolled into the inside give it a good press and head over to your top stitching thread you're going to be doing a top stitch and this is an option you do not have to do this but it is really helpful so i would recommend it and then back stitch just once again to that point where the crotch seams line up press that seam and now we're going to figure out how to lay this now this is important because if you don't overlap the left over the right enough your waistband is going to be too small so it goes a little bit further than you should think it should usually it ends up going a little bit past where the zipper tape is almost to where the seam allowance would be on the other side you can measure and check with your pattern specs also to make sure that this act this is accurate i like to put a pin on that side and then what we're going to do is we're going to be attaching the zipper to that fly facing piece it's important to have it laid out on the front first so that when you sew it your pants lay flat and there isn't any bubbling happening on the outside after you have those pins done you can do one or two rows of stitching starting right at that zipper stop going to the top of the zipper i'm lining up the edge of my presser foot with the edge of the teeth with the narrow split foot now we're going to do the top stitching at the crotch seam when you do this make sure that you give it one more good press because the fabric likes to overlap on top of itself do this on the front and the back it's helpful to pull the the edge of your pant and sometimes you can even clip it so that it lays a little bit more flat this isn't always necessary but if you're finding that you keep catching that edge when you're stitching you can clip that corner a bit so that it lays flat and then come back in and pin the fly shield and the zipper tape in place once you're ready use the edge foot and you're going to make sure that this is going to line up with your crotch seam on the back so use that as a reference to make sure that you're sewing on the correct side now we're going to try to stitch making sure that we're not catching the ends of the zipper we're going to try to stitch all the way to that zipper stop that we had so the original stitch clip your threads and then check to make sure that you didn't over stitch if you did go ahead and seam rip it and pull it out it looks like i got one stitch so i ended up going back in and redoing this now we're going to do the second row of stitching making sure that the distance is the same on the back crotch as it is on the front crotch in my case i'm doing a quarter of an inch and i'm still making sure that all of those seams are out of the way just kind of pulling them out of the way with pins and my fingers now this is potentially the most challenging part of the jean construction so be prepared to have to redo this a couple of times and be prepared to take lots of deep breaths so you're going to be drawing a line for the top stitching on the outside of the jeans and after you've done that you need to fold the fly shield out of the way so i usually fold in the end up and pin it out of the way as well as off to the side so we want that to be totally clear of of any of the fly shield a really helpful tool to use here it usually comes in sewing kits and it's a little plastic gauge that will make it so that your presser foot is the same height in the front as it is in the back once you can get over that original top edge that has a lot of bulk you can remove that and then just make sure that your fly is laying flat and go over your first row of stitching i like to begin at the curve because that's usually the part that has the most problems so if i start and it doesn't look good i can seam rip right away rather than having to scene rip the entire j shape so again use that gauge so that your machine doesn't skip stitches when it's going over all this bulk when the presser foot has an equal level on the front and the back it will not skip stitches after your second row of stitching you can check this and make sure that it looks good don't be fooled i did this at least four times after that you can unpin your fly shield and give it a good press and you can choose if you would like to use a buttonhole foot or just a regular foot and create a bar tack we're going to be doing this in two spots but we need to make sure that that fly shield is flat this is the only place where the fly shield is connected in all places and we do this so that it's not flopping around at the bottom but so that it's actually functional at the top if you're having trouble doing this you can try making it so that you only have the top stitching thread on the top of your machine and then regular thread on the bobbin once it tends to get a little bit thick sometimes the thread can get caught i'm just using the first stitch on a buttonhole but you can use a zigzag with a length of two as well as a width of two or you can lower the length down to zero like a buttonhole now we're going to be serging the pocket facing pieces that are out of denim and they're going to be going on to your woven cotton pocket bags lay the pocket facing so the notches are matching and also so that the curved edge is on the inside and the raw edges are on the outside i like to put in several pins just like i did with the patch pockets on the back of the pant and then we're going to be top stitching this in place whatever type of fabric you would like to see on the inside should be what is on the back and whatever type of fabric is going to be hidden within the pocket bag should be on the front so usually i use the technical back as the top now this is an option if you would like to include your coin pocket you'll want to match up the pocket bag with the denim facing so that it is on your front pant and then you're going to pre-stitch the pocket just like you did with your back pockets because these are little boy pants this pocket is a little bit too big for for this um but it would work well for an adult size pant otherwise it's a little bit too small so if you would like to do this you can stitch the pocket the coin pocket in and you're going to do the exact same thing as you did with the back pant pocket it's important to lay it out with the pant closed so that you can kind of see where it's going otherwise you can kind of put it in a strange place after you remove your pins you can go through the top stitching round one more time just like you did on the back pant and end with bar tacks at the top of the coin pocket after you've clipped your threads we're now going to install the pockets so make sure that you're laying them out so that you've got the correct pocket on the correct side and then with the wrong side on one side and the right side on the other so basically that other piece of denim should be down while you're pinning you're going to match your notches and use your seam allowance the half inch or 5 8 whichever your pattern has allowed for and you're going to stitch that curve begin and end with the back stitch and after you've clipped your threads you have the option of clipping the curves if you'd like repeat this on the second side and if you feel confident enough you do not need to pin this back in place go ahead and just use the seam allowance to stitch the curve once again some people will put interfacing into this step so that it's stabilized a little bit more that's up to you whether or not you think that you're going to have enough wear and tear when you clip the curves remember to click to not through and then if you'd like you can grade the seam so that one of the sides is smaller than the other this is optional but if you've got a lot of excess bulk this can help after you've done that you're going to press the curve up so that you can when you pull it down you don't see any of the pocketing fabric so usually i press it first on the technical front and then i press it again on the technical back making sure that i've got an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch of seam allowance there so i really make sure that that pocketing fabric is not poking out do this on both sides and then you're also going to need to press the seam down so that it lays nice and flat at your sewing machine you're going to do two rows of top stitching on that curve to secure the pocketing fabric to the pocket curve on the denim you do not need to do a back stitch at this point remember to stay in line with whatever seam allowance you've allotted in this case i'm doing a quarter of an inch of seam allowance so i'm needing to alter my stitch width with the needle position and once you're done you'll repeat this on the second side now that your pocket bags have been top stitched you're going to line them up and press them flat so that the top of the pocket bag is lining up with the top of the front pant and the side seams are also matching we're going to do a french seam on the pocket bags you can also just serge and stitch this but a french seam looks a lot nicer so first you're going to start by lining up the edges of the curved bottom edge of the pocketing and then pin those in place so you'll have the right sides together which is usually the opposite of what a french seam is now you're going to use a quarter of an inch of seam allowance to stitch the bottom edge only after you've done that you can choose to either press the seam open or you can immediately set off to trim the seam allowance down to 1 8 of an inch remember this is just on that bottom curve after you've done that make sure that it's pressed really nice and flat and again you can press this before during and after whatever is going to work best for you when i'm doing a curved french seam sometimes i just like to roll the edges with my hands to make sure that the two seams are flush with one another after that you'll go back over to the machine and you'll use a quarter of an inch of seam allowance once again to stitch the raw edges in place and to finish the french seam begin and end with the back stitch and clip your threads once that's done on both sides you're going to baste the side seam and the top edges in place it's helpful to press this in place and then give yourself a couple of pins keep in mind that one side is going to be really close to the zipper and the fly facing make sure that you do not stitch that otherwise you will not be able to get in and out of the pant after you're done stay stitching the top you can move on to the side this is going to make your life a lot easier when you start to construct the waistband and the out seam again because this is a stay stitch you only need to use about a quarter inch of seam allowance so that you don't have to unpick any additional thread after you're done now you're going to serge the out seam on your front pants note that i had already done this without recording so make sure that you do this on both sides after that we are going to move on to the inseam so matching up your stitch lines and the ditch lines in the crotch seam of your pants you're going to begin pinning these together keep in mind that the fabric tends to grow at this point but if there's a little bit of give in your fabric you should be able to line them up so again start at the crotch seam and pin into the stitch lines and it's sometimes difficult to complete that so if you have to put the pins in and then pin elsewhere that's great then i want you to go down to the hem and pin the hem and then if there's a little bit of give in one side and not the other you will be able to stretch out the pants so that they both align if you don't do this one leg of your pant tends to grow a little bit longer than the other and then your hem might get a little bit funky and the grain might little get a little bit off so make sure that you're pinning up the crotch and then the hem and give yourself plenty of pins and note that you may need to stretch out one or both layers of the fabric so that they match one another now you're going to use your 5 8 or one half inch seam allowance whichever one your pattern has allotted and you're going to stitch the in seam together notice how sometimes i need to roll the pant and i'm pulling it with my right hand so that the seams match usually this is fine if you did correct cutting but occasionally depending on how you're sewing you might need to stretch this out at this point my thread breaks so i need to go back over and start again so you'll see me swapping over to repair that and if that ever happens it's no big deal just re-thread your machine back stitch directly over your original stitch continue stitching and end with the back stitch now ensure that your lines match up and head on over to the serger and line up the left edge of the presser foot with your edge only trimming off a little bit of the frayed edges and you're going to serge the end seam together it's really important that you do the inseam first because the next step that we're going to do involves top stitching the entire inseam so you'll need to make sure that your out seams are not yet connected otherwise it's very hard to attach the next step now we're going to press all of the seam allowance towards the front of the pant you'll need to do this in a few passes but make sure that you're pressing first on the technical back or the wrong side of the fabric and then after you've done that you're going to flip it over and you're going to press it once again on the right side of the fabric this is just a good common practice with almost everything that you do because you can't always see what's happening on the other side when you're pressing the opposite side after you've done that you're going to use the edge foot and your top stitching thread at a length of four to stop top stitch one row of stitching towards the front of the pant make sure that you're smoothing out the fabric as you do this so that you don't have any tucks within the stitch if you do this it's going to make your pants too small now we're going to move on to the out seam so begin with the top edge of the outseam of the front pant and the top yoke of the back and then you will pin at the hem and then start working your way down noting once again that you might have to stretch out the fabric just a little bit so that it matches this happens in part because of the stitching that's happening with the yoke and the pocket seam it can also happen to the serger there can be cutting issues etc but usually you're able to stretch it out a bit so that it fits after you've completed this on one side you'll repeat it on the other and make sure that when you start to do this you are stitching from the top to the bottom on both legs do not start from the hem on one side and then the top on the other that's going to stretch it in the opposite direction using your seam allowance of one half or 5 8 inch begin and end with a back stitch on both legs of the pants so you'll notice on one side i started on the pocketing side and the other one i'm starting on the yoke that is correct you're going to do both of those so that you make sure that you're starting from the top of the pant and ending at the bottom if for some reason at this point you see that you only have one edge of your outseam serged make sure that you've got both of them serged separately you can still do this even if you've stitched and you're just going to run the leg under the serger and then once you're done with that you're going to move over to the iron and you will be pressing open the majority of the pant however at the very top we're going to be pressing part of the seam allowance all to one side so if you draw an imaginary line from your back pocket the bottom tip of the back pocket you're going to be pressing your out seam towards the back of the pant to that point because we're going to be top stitching it repeat that on both sides noting that you're pressing the out seam all the way until that that bottom point on your back patch pocket make sure that you're doing this on the inside and the outside of the garment so that it lays nice and flat after you've done that you're gonna head back over to your sewing machine and if you would like you can also place a pin at your stop point where the tip of that pocket is so that you know where to begin and end your stitch at the sewing machine using the edge foot you are going to top stitch the seam allowance towards the back just until the pin or where the point of the bottom of your patch pocket is after you've gotten to that point go ahead and backstitch and repeat on the second side after you've done this sometimes people will do a bar tack at the bottom of this that is optional if you'd like to do it great if you don't want to no problem and make sure that you cut your threads nice and close and if you'd like to put the buttonhole foot you can otherwise you can just use your regular presser foot to do a small little bar tack at the bottom and i have a function on my sheen for my machine for buttonholes and so i usually just use that but you can also just do a small zigzag so that your stitch length is between zero and one and your stitch width is between one and two next i'm going to put a safety pin at the bottom edge of the zipper because we're going to start to pull teeth we need to make sure that when we attach the waistband we're not stitching on top of metal teeth because that will break your your machine needle so beginning about 5 8 of an inch or one half of an inch down depends on what your seam allowance is you're going to start to pull the teeth out note that the direction that you pull the teeth out and where you use the pliers is going to make your life either really easy or really hard and after you've got some of those pulled off then you can cut off that edge now it's helpful instead of measuring this way to zip up the zipper until you get to that tooth point where you have plucked the other side off sometimes you can pluck too many or too few off and so if you zip this up first and make sure that you don't pull your zipper pull off it's really important that you don't do that because it's hard to get them back on that'll be helpful after you've got that set and your teeth are done check to make sure that things are lining up and again you can see how many more i need to pull off on this one side than the other so if i had waited to un to pull off these teeth until i checked my other side i would have saved myself a couple of minutes of plucking the teeth again you can get a zipper that is the correct size it's just often easier to install the zipper if you're not having to deal with the zipper head so if the zipper head extends past the top of your waistband it'll make the construction a bit easier now you're going to fuse four squares of fusible interfacing onto your waistband where the button hole and the jean tack will go and i like to use a quarter inch of seam allowance on one end to kind of get myself started and then i'm going to sandwich those two ends in between the layers of the top of the waist of the pant and the waistband now it's really common for the waistband to not fit for a lot of reasons one thing that can happen is that if the yoke or the top of the waist stretches out that can make it so that things are not lining up another issue that can happen is inconsistent seam allowances when you've started to sew and finally how far you moved over the zipper fly when you started to install it so it's really important that you pin this first and make sure that it fits if not you can go back in and stay stitch the waist of your pants sometimes you'll end up needing to cut a slightly larger waistband in which case you need to go back and check because you might have done a cutting pattern making or sewing error that can cause that to happen and then once you know that everything is is good to go and you're going to be able to go around you can stitch up that other side that other edge at your seam allowance after you've completed this you're going to make sure that the edge of the top of the waistband and the edge of the top of the pants are butting up against each other really tight you're going to see in this video that i need to get a little bit closer to it after i've stitched but it's okay you might have to come in and finagle with it just a little bit i like to use lots of pins especially since the top of the waistband of the pant tends to slip underneath the waistband that is a long rectangle so make sure that you're just going through sometimes you'll have to tug things and get lots of pins in there so things are lining up with all of the raw edges after you're done pinning you're going to head over to your machine with the regular thread and you're going to stitch up the waistband at your allotted seam allowance whether that is 5 8 of an inch or a half of an inch begin an end with a back stitch and take your time doing this making sure that all of the layers are really matching up something else that i like to do before i stitch this or towards the end of stitching this is to make sure that the waistband is ending at the same point so you're going to see me check right now i'm going to roll up the waistband i can see that i can butt that one up a little bit closer to the edge i'm going to remove the safety pin and then i'm going to zip making sure that i'm not taking the zipper head off and seeing if they match up so you can see that i'm matching up pretty nicely there if you didn't match up nicely you can just unpick part of that edge and lower it down like i'm showing with my fingers now once again if that end of the waistband is not close enough to the end waist of your pants you can just go back in and restitch that so that it's a little bit smaller you can unpick the original seam or just leave it in there next i'm going to reduce bulk by clipping the corner edge of the waistband because we've got a lot of layers in there and then i'm going to start the tedious process of pressing the waistband so you're going to need to press it on both sides on the technical front and also on the inside of the pant it's really important that you don't have any tucks here so take your time pressing this and make sure that all of the edges are pressed up nice and flat after you're done pressing we're now going to measure to make sure that our waistband is the same height all the way around so measuring up from your turn you're going to measure up the allotted distance and you should have half of an inch or 5 8 of an inch at the top but sometimes it's inconsistent so it's more important that you're measuring from the seam line than you are the seam allowance also at this point you need to make sure that when the jeans close they're going to be lining up right there but then you're going to have to sneak underneath and make sure that that line is matching now i'm going to fold this edge under and i'm going to start pressing it go ahead and just do this on the outside and then you're going to press the other side to meet it so instead of having to mark this two times you just mark it once and then you're going to be pinning and pressing the other side take your time on this because if the waistband is uneven it looks a little funky and then at the corners you might have to finagle this a little bit you you can press the seam open you can press it to one side and often i'll have to hammer this top edge so that it can stay flat and i can stitch it and press it really nicely so after i've pressed all the way through i come up and i smooth that inside waistband up and then as i pin it i make sure that it's laying flat you'll do this around the entire circumference of the top of the waistband and note that sometimes it's a little bit helpful if the bottom or the inside part of the waistband is peeking out over your top waistband by just a sixteenth of an inch just to hair because it's going to tend to want to roll under and you want it to be flush or a little bit over when you're topstitching the other alternative waistband is to make one piece that is twice the height that it needs to be and then you would turn this over turn the the edge under and then stitch to catch the the bottom of all of them however we're going to be doing this construction for the clasp next i'm going to be hammering all of that bulky seam allowance that's under there so just grab the hammer and smash it down a bit now starting on the fly shield inside of the waistband you're going to start from that short edge and then you're going to be pivoting so that you've got the top stitching thread at a length four and your edge foot to stitch in the ditch and you're going to be constructing this all the way through once you get to that corner pivot to the jeans stitch up the top place the needle in and pivot again now this top edge it's really important that you make sure that you're catching both of the layers so if it looks like you're not going to catch that under layer or vice versa come back in and make sure that you're rolling the seams up to match once you get to the very bottom corner you're going to come back in and stitch over your original stitch and back stitch now if you took off too many teeth you can place a top stop on the top of your zipper on either side you can also do that with a thread tack now we're going to move on to the belt loops you'll be serging the long edge of one of the belt loops and then you're going to be pressing it over so that it's almost matching the edge of the serging it's important for that searched edge to be really close to the edge of the turn of the cloth because we're going to be stitching on that edge and if it doesn't get over far enough you're not going to catch this alternatively you can use a cover stitch to do this all at once where you would pre-press everything and then you just render under run it under the cover stitch i'm going to use my edge foot and do each side individually of the belt loops and you're going to do this all in one pass and then we're going to cut the belt loops into smaller pieces once you've completed top stitching your belt loops head on over to the cutting table and you're going to be cutting these into even strips depending on your pattern you might have a different length for mine but if you're doing the children's size pants we're going to be cutting our belt loop to three inches you might have a little spare and that's great you can just chop that little bit off now you're going to start marking the placement of all of the belt loops one should be in the center back two should be in line with the back edge of your pocket and the ones in the front should be a finger distance away from the edge of your pocket after you've marked those out i like to lay these all on and pin them in place this way and i'm going to be stitching them first on like this and then i'll be turning them under the other way a lot of times people will just top stitch these however sometimes you need a little bit more of a heavy duty machine in order to do this so overlay about a quarter of an inch onto the fabric with the serging side facing up towards you and place pins in all five of your belt loops with regular thread you're going to stitch in line with the top stitching thread on the top of the waistband and i do this a few times i usually stitch back stitch stitch back stitch after you've done that with all five of the belt loops you're going to come back to the iron and press all of the belt loops down after you've pressed all of the belt loops down we're going to be pinning and tucking under the belt loop to stitch it in another way again normally you would just top stitch this but sometimes our machines cannot handle it so i'm going to mark about a half of an inch down and then i'm going to fold this under so that that raw edge butts up against the bottom of the waistband continue this for all five fear belt loops and after you've pinned them in place you're going to head on over to the sewing machine now you have to kind of put the presser foot underneath the tunnel and this can be tricky because sometimes you stitch the wrong part and you stitch on top of the belt loop instead of under but you will get the hang of it you're going to repeat that on all five belt loops next you're going to hammer down all of the belt loops so that they're laying flat in the hopes that you'll be able to top stitch this so again normally these are used with the bar tack but you may see what happens when you stitch on this sometimes the machine really doesn't like it and it gets stuck and so if that's the case you can try a regular presser foot instead of the buttonhole foot which works a bit better and if it is not doing the bar tack you can just do a straight stitch like i'm demonstrating here any of these are going to be fine for your jeans ideally it will be the bar tack but if you can't get that then a straight stitch will be a-okay once you've done this to the top and the bottom of all of your belt loops we're ready to attach the jean tack so the first thing that you need to do is measure the diameter plus the height of the jean tack just like you would with the button and then you're going to find the placement to make sure that you like where the jean button is supposed to go after you've found where you want that center area to go you're going to find the center of the waistband and you'll be marking a horizontal line a vertical line for i should say um it's a horizontal line for the distance of the gene tack which is again the diameter plus the height of your gene tech button and then i like to put an awl through that first point right there because that is where the jean is going to rest after you've gone all the way through all the layers you're going to go through the back layer and with the all still in place you'll put the bottom of the jean tack up through the hole and then you're going to place the jean tack on the top if you want to double check to make sure that this looks good on the outside you can do so once you're ready you'll place the top of the jean tack down on the jean tack tool and then you're going to be hammering this you don't want to hammer back and forth but rather up and down you have to hammer this pretty hard in order for it to stay in place and it's really easy for it to get skewed so it's a good idea to test this out on a scrap of fabric before you do your actual jeans once you've got that you're going to zip it up and you should be able to feel where the zipper is going to go next either using your buttonhole foot or your regular presser foot you are going to use the buttonhole or the keyhole button hole for your jeans once you get to the end press the backstitch button so that the machine starts to backstitch and if your machine does not do this follow the instructions in the manual for how to create a buttonhole and then using the buttonhole cutter or a seam ripper you will cut that button open it's okay if you have to undo this it's really common for the buttonholes to get a little bit wonky so if you have to test it out a couple of times take breaks take your time and you will get there the most important part is that you're not cutting through the bars at the beginning and the end of your jeans check to make sure that the button goes through if it's a little too small you may need to increase the length of your buttonhole the last step of the jeans is going to be hemming now if you've got a little bit of excess on your hem you can trim that down a bit and i'm going to show you a couple of different ways to hem the first way is to twice turn first you'll turn the inseams and outline seams at a half of an inch and then a half of an inch again and then pin and then after you've done that you'll take the center front and center back rolling a half inch and a half inch and then pinning if you're custom making these you can try them on the client prior to doing this so that you don't have to unpick the hem to make sure that it's long or short enough and after you've done that give it a good press after you've done your twice turn hem pressing you're going to head on over to your machine and i either like to begin at the back inseam or the front in so that the top stitching is on the inside stitch all the way around the circumference of the hem trying to make sure that you are keeping equal distance from the turn of the cloth on the inside as you are with the edge of the turn of the cloth on the outside this basically just means having a consistent even hem all the way around after you get to the end go over your original stitch end with a back stitch and complete this on the second side if you're feeling really confident instead of pressing you can do the roll technique two times especially if you have a good idea of what a half inch looks like and you can stitch this all the way around i only recommend this if you feel really confident with your stitching after you've done this try on your pants and you have completed your first pair of jeans congratulations i hope this video helped you out

Channel: Chelsey Byrd

Views: 10,626

Keywords:

Id: Ij85Ab5DmdI

Length: 54min 34sec (3274 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 10 2021