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| Balmain style orange jeans, Halloween 2016 |
My colleague donated a blue hard-hat = which was spray painted red.
A few sheets of foam core cardboard, orange and yellow cardboard (from Dollarama), colour craft paper, acrylic paint, silver duct-tape, spray and hot glue and markers made the top.
The time came to figure out the bottoms. I itched to sew, and...
Went shopping for fabric. Had to be cheap - alas, orange upholstery fabric at a whopping $6. Yes, I left Fabricville with just 1m. of fabric!
Drafted a pattern following instruction for Rundschau (Мюллер) method. Introduced biker styling. Made a mental note - do not stack horizontal seams in vertical seams... spread them, space them - will be easier to sew.
I wanted to break the orange with some denim panels, and make those illusive ribbed panels Balmain is famous for. Balmain uses a double needle with an elastic thread at the bottom. The space between two rows is 8mm... My machine can do 4mm max. So... after a lengthy deliberation on a sewing forum, I opted to use a synthetic jersey as a backing.
I stitched two layers of fabric (denim and jersey) with one row of stitches. Then, using the width of my presser foot as a guide, stretched the bottom jersey layer to the max, and run a parallel row of stitches. The denim did not form itself into a nice rib. I persevered. After an hour of stitching this small piece of fabric, I was about to fit my pattern piece on it. I tried massaging the stitched piece, and some form of ribbing started to appear. I decided to spray it with water. And... magic happened. May be water softened denim and allowed the jersey to pull everything together. Just a few rows of ribbing needed persuading. Relieved, I let everything dry before proceeding.
There is nothing special about putting these pants together. Just too many pattern pieces. I hoped for a quick project, but it took me almost 2 full days!
My son was excited about the pants. And my spouse is asking for a pair as well, but may be not orange. Yes or no?
