So these are what took me the most time over the last week. At some points I was beginning to wish I hadn’t started them, but the end result was worth it.

Probably.

Anyhow, after my success of making myself jeans the other week, Mr M decided he wanted some too. I was going to try and take a pattern off one of his existing pairs, but then decided that I would try a pattern by Thread Theory Designs Inc., the Jedediah Pants!

Calling them “Pants” is still really odd to me. To me, pants are underwear, things that I would wear underneath my clothes, not my trousers themselves, but this pattern calls for Pants, and so Pants they are.

These were another surprise present for Mr M (along with the Chemex cosy), and so that made them a little tricky, I couldn’t test them out as I was making them very easily, so took measurements off some of his existing jeans, and adjusted the pattern accordingly. The pattern is for a slim fitting style, so I had to be careful as a) Mr M has quite muscular legs, and b) he prefers a more bootcut style. When I was adjusting the pattern, I graduated out from the upper thigh to hem at the outer seam.

And then I made a test pair of shorts out of some material from my stash, size 34, graded out to 38 at the hem on the outer seam. The test pair had pockets inspired by the front pocket lining fabric, leftover from my Lonsdale dress:

I then also used it for binding the out seam edges, and the inner edge of the waistband:

I really loved working with this fabric, it’s some cotton that I bought about 2 years ago from Fabricland in Bristol and has been languishing in my stash waiting for me to make a test pair of jeans with ever since. Thankfully I think I might just have enough left to make myself a pair of shorts too, as it was so wide!

Anyway, here are some action sho(r)ts of Mr M, first up is of course the casual lean:

Then, the less casual lean:

Then finally, the staring at a wall:

I actually tried these on him last week, blindfolding him first, so I am pretty sure he knew he was having a pair of something for his birthday! I didn’t want to risk going the whole hog and making him some jeans and them not fit though. When he tried them on they fit, but were on the “tight and not that comfortable if he were to eat a large meal” side, so I sized up when making the jeans.

And if the shorts were inspired by stashbusting my bicycle fabric, the jeans were inspired by Mr M’s love of Star Wars, and this fabric from Joann that I bought for the pocket lining and binding:

But what to pick for those pocket details? For the first one I kept it pretty simple….

“Now witness the firepower of this fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL battle station!”

I traced the outer lines, and some of the details of the Death Star onto my pocket, using dark grey heavyweight thread to stitch them in place, then adding in some neon green combined with glow in the dark thread to stitch in the superlaser.

Yep. It glows in the dark.

For the other one? There was really only one ship it could be, and this one was somewhat trickier than the Death Star. I first traced the main features of the image, picking out the general shape, and some other major features, then instead of transferring the markings from my traced image with chalk and stitching them in, I just pinned the traced image onto the pocket and stitched right over it, using a light grey topstitching thread, and dark grey heavy duty thread:

Then, I removed the outer paper, and stitched in the blue glow from the engines, using a combination of bright blue, and glow in the dark thread as before, then removing the rest of the paper:

NB. Make sure all threads are super secure! As the stitching has perforated the paper, this makes it much easier to remove. Just gently lift each piece up, assisting with something sharp and pokey if need be! I used a seam ripper.

Other than the embellished pockets, I pretty much made both the shorts and pants as directed, just making them slightly wider in the leg.

Here are the action shots! First up, the ‘reading up on some history pose’

Then, the ‘playing around in a tree’ pose:

…and the “is that you I see there?”

Shorts and Pants done!

I have to say, I think my favourite ones are the shorts. Now he has tried on both properly, I think the jeans need taking in at the hips, as they are a little big there and make them look a bit like super unflattering ‘Mom Jeans’. I also really like the material of the shorts and so will hopefully make myself something out of what is left! Haha!