For today’s sew-along post, let’s talk about pocket customization!

Mountain Pocket Top Stitching Design

First off, due to popular demand, Matt and I have created a template so that you can re-create the mountain top stitching that I added to the Jutland Pants from our photoshoot.

To use the pocket template, open it in your browser and print it full size.  The template is the largest patch pocket size.  Place the pocket template over your pocket fabric.  Trace the design with a tracing wheel or mark relevant points with pins and then ‘connect the dots’ by free hand drawing between each pin.

I used jean-weight top stitching thread for my pockets but if you would rather use regular polyester thread, you can create a more subtly visible design or you can stitch over your design two or three times to make the design more pronounced.  You could even use two or three different colors of thread as you re-trace the design to create a bit of depth and visual interest!  I only added this stitching to the right hand pocket so that the pants were asymmetrical – but you can do whatever you wish (or create your own design!).

Creating a Screw Driver Pocket

Variation Two of the Jutland Pants includes two slim cargo pockets with flaps that feature velcro closures.  These can be handy for carrying small items such as screws, nails or even dog poop bags :P.  I designed them so that they would not look bulky and hang off the pant legs awkwardly (as I find some cargo pockets are prone to).

(Various pant leg pocket styles on Kühl Pants.  Click on each image to see a larger version.)

While symmetrical cargo pockets are pretty standard on this style of pants, don’t let this limit you!  Why not create your own pockets perfectly suited to the wearer’s needs? Replace one cargo pocket with a welt cell phone pocket, a zipped pocket, a large pleated patch pocket, or, as I am about to show you, a long screw driver pocket!

This pocket is very long and large enough to hold screw drivers deep within the pocket so they don’t slip out.  If you would like to create a shallower pocket so that it ends well before knee level, simply slice off the bottom of the pocket template.

To use the screw driver pocket template, download it and print it at full size.  This template does not include seam allowances but it is graded for all pant sizes so first, to prepare your pattern piece, cut out your desired size and add seam allowances to all edges.

Cut two pocket pieces from your fabric.  The pocket is double layered for strength and ease of construction.  If you would like to reduce bulk you could cut one pocket from your self fabric and one from your thinner lining fabric.

The pocket sits on the back leg of the pants so you will need to construct the pocket and stitch it to the pant leg before stitching the side seam.  Note that this is long before you add the cargo pockets as directed in the instruction booklet (the cargo pockets are top stitched in place over the completed side seams).  You will also need to add the screwdriver pocket before adding the back patch pockets.

Okay, time to sew the pocket!

1. With right sides together, pin the two pocket layers together.  Stitch along the pocket opening, the back edge and the bottom edges of the pocket (the areas indicated with an orange stitching line in the image above).  Do not stitch along the remaining pocket edges.
2. Trim and grade the seam allowances to reduce bulk.
   
3. Flip the pocket so right sides are out and press flat.  Top stitch and edge stitch along the pocket opening.
4. Pin the pocket to the pant leg so that the raw pocket side lines up with the pant side seam, the pocket bottom lines up with the cargo pocket placement dots, and the top edge overlaps patch pocket placement marking.  Baste along the raw edges within the seam allowance.  Top stitch and edge stitch along the finished edges.
5. Continue constructing the pants as directed – add the back patch pocket so it overlaps the top edge of the screwdriver pocket.  Stitch the side seams.  Note that the layers of the screw driver pocket and the knee patches will possibly create too much bulk to create flat fell seams.  You can simply stitch the seam and then create faux flat fell seams by pressing the seam allowances to the back and then top stitching and edge stitching the seam allowances in place.

See you tomorrow evening for the biggest and most detailed post of the sew-along!  We’ll be walking through all the steps necessary to sew the fly on both pairs of pants, insert the lining in Variation 2 and add the waistband.

I’m back!  Sorry for the delay – Matt and I decided to slow the schedule down and got ourselves wrapped up in Christmas decorating, Christmas gift making and a rum and egg nog or two over the last few days.  I hope you don’t mind!  I’m stretching the remaining details of the sew along a few more days so that the posts aren’t so overwhelmingly long.

Today I have the photographed fly tutorial for you!  I’ve sewn the fly using an alternative order of construction.  In the instruction booklet for the Jutland Pants (and the Jedediah Pants) the pants are sewn using my preferred method: The side seams and inseams are sewn first before the fly is tackled.  I like this method because it allows me to warm up to sewing the fly!

Some people prefer to sew the fly at the very start of the pants sewing process so that they can work with flatter pieces and less bulk.  This is totally doable with any pair of fly front pants regardless of what the instructions suggest.  Keep in mind though, that if you are adding cargo pockets to the Jutland Pants, you must still make sure to sew the side seams before sewing the inseams so that you are able to top stitch the cargo pockets to the flat, spread open legs over the completed side seam.

At the end of this post, I’ve photographed the gusset sewing process.  I have not tried adding a gusset using the order of construction that I suggest in our instruction booklet.  I think you would still be able to add one but it seems to me that sewing the pant front and pant back as separate panels first and then adding the gusset when attaching the panels together along the inseam is the simplest approach.

How to Sew A Fly

Let’s get started!

Begin by sewing the crotch seam.  With the pants front right sides together, sew from the inseam up to the zipper placement notch on the fly extension.

Sew the crotch seam on the pants back as well.  Sew these using a flat fell seam if desired.  You can also sew this seam with right sides together and then push the seam to one side and top stitch and edge stitch in place (this is a faux flat fell seam).

This pair of pants is going to be lined so, since we’re sewing the fly first, the process of adding a lining also includes a different order.  Sew the crotch seam in the lining just as you did for the exterior of the pants.  Bind, serge or otherwise finish the lining and self fly extension edges.

With the exterior and lining wrong sides together, attach the lining to the pants only along the fly extensions – baste it in place within the seam allowance down to the curve of the fly extension.

There are two notches at the top of either fly extension.  Press along the entire fly extension using these notches as a guide.  The right front of the pants (if you were wearing the pants…so the left side in these photos) is the underside of the fly and needs to extend 1/4″ past the crotch seam.  Use the closest notch to center front as a guide.  The left front of the pants is the upper part of the fly. Press the left front fly extension using the second notch as a guide (furthest from center front) so the folded edge is even with the crotch seam.

Now it’s time to prepare the zipper shield!  Fold the zipper shield in half and bind the raw edge.  Stitch the left side of the zipper to the zipper shield along the middle of the zipper tape.

Note:  In the Jutland instructions I’ve suggested to bind or serge the raw edge of the zipper shield to reduce bulk if you are creating work pants using thick fabrics.  If you are using thinner fabric, you could fold the shield with wrong sides together and flip so right sides are out.  If you do this, you could stitch the zipper to either edge of the shield.

Pin the zipper to the right side of the pant fly (if you were wearing the pants…so the left side in the photo above!).  Before stitching, make sure that the lining fabric is fully folded along the fly extension…it tends to unfold itself even after ironing!

Stitch the zipper in place using a zipper foot.  The photo above is how your pants will appear from the underside at this point.

Now it’s time to attach the zipper to the other side of the pants front.  Fold the zipper shield out of the way.

Pinch the loose fly extension and the zipper.  Move the rest of the pants out of the way (ignore the stitching in this photo!  I decided to take it after already stitching the zipper in place :P).

From the wrong side of the zipper, stitch along the zipper tape.  Catch only the zipper extension (again place the lining in the correct position.  Make sure it doesn’t slip out of place!).

The last step when sewing the fly is to top stitch!  Pin the fly closed at center front at the top of the fly.  Draw a chalk line to create your desired fly shape.  End the top stitching guideline just below the metal zipper stop.  Before top stitching, move the zipper shield out of the way (fold it to the left).  Now follow your chalk markings and top stitch.  Back stitch thoroughly at center front.

Move the zipper shield back in place.

Create a bar tack or simply stitch forward and backwards often below the zipper stop to reinforce the base of fly – there is a lot of strain in this area.

How to Sew A Gusset

Now that the fly is finished, lets add the gusset!  Pin the gusset to the pants back with right sides together.  Stitch.

Create triangular notches in the gusset seam allowance and clip into the pants seam allowance to allow the curve to sit smoothly.  Grade the seam allowances.

Press the seam allowance towards the gusset.  Top the seam allowance in place to strengthen the seam.

With right sides together, pin the entire inseam in place (make sure that, across the gusset, the crotch seam along the front and back line up!  You’ll see that I didn’t do a perfect job of this in a little bit…woops!).  Note that, if you are sewing the cargo pockets, you will want to sew the side seams before sewing the inseam.

Once the inseam has been sewn, clip into the gusset seam allowances so that the curve sits flat.

Create a faux flat fell seam by pressing the inseams towards the back.  Top stitch and edge stitch along the entire seam.

Sew the gusset in the lining in the same manner.  Sew the side seams and inseams separately from the exterior pant shell.

Ta daa!  A completed fly and gusset!

Over the next few days we will be working on the waistband, adding buttons to the welts on the second pair of Jutlands that I’ve been sewing for Matt.  Then I will be adding Otter Wax to Matt’s Jutland pants, and adding rivets and extra reinforcement stitches to my Uncle’s Jutland Pants.

Today I’ll share some of my thoughts on rivets and strengthening details with you and I will show you a detailed step by step of my Otter Wax application process.

Strengthening Details

Let’s start with a few stitching techniques that you might not find suggested in most trouser pattern instruction booklets (but that can be easily added to any pair of trousers even after they are finished!):

1. The side seam edge stitching:  Press both seam allowance towards the back and edge stitch through all layers.  This will prevent pants from ripping or stretching out after heavy front pocket use.
2. The fly ‘bartack':  On this pair I’ve just back stitched excessively at the end of my faux flat fell seam.  You could also do a narrow zig zag stitch (i.e. a buttonhole stitch) for a very professional detail.
3. The faux flat fell seat seam:  This is much easier than stitching a real flat fell seam along the crotch of the pants and it allows you to position or even clip the seam allowances at the base of the fly so that both the seam allowances and the fly sit flat.

Otter Wax Application

(Before Waxing)

This is how Matt’s Jutland Pants looked before I added Otter Wax or a button.

I decided to apply Otter Wax to Matt’s Jutlands before attaching the jeans buttons and rivets because I figured the metal hardware would be tricky to wax around and I didn’t want to fill the rivets with pools of wax by accident!  All the same, if you wanted to wax a finished pair of jeans or trousers, you could trim a small chunk of wax off of the bar and use it to get into tight areas.  You could also melt any excess wax off of the rivets and button by using a hair dryer.  For this pair of pants I ended up using 1 1/2 bars to create one medium-heavy coat of wax.

Otter Wax recommends rubbing the wax into the fabric and then simply leaving the garment to cure for 48 hours.  I like to speed up the process considerably and also add a couple layers of wax by pairing the heat caused by friction with the heat of a hair dryer.  Here is the technique that I’ve grown accustomed to:

Prep an area of fabric by heating it with a hair dryer.  I work on one section at a time when waxing a large project – you can even leave the project partially finished for days on end and come back to it when you have a few spare minutes.  Even though the finished area will have cured, you can simply wax the remaining area and you won’t be able to notice where you left off once the whole garment has cured.

Hold the area taught with one hand and rub the wax on with the other hand.

Rub until enough wax has transferred onto the material to fill the weave of the fabric (this is just a suggestion – you can make your coat of wax as thin or as thick as you would like to create a variety of appearances and levels of water resistance!).

Heat the waxed area with a hair dryer and rub the partially melted wax into the fabric.  I really like how deeply the wax sinks into the fabric when it is melted like this.  The fabric becomes stiffer and the final product feels very dry (and in no way sticky).  You’ll notice that skipping the hair dryer and simply leaving the garment to cure by laying it flat to ‘air dry’ will create a different effect – the wax sits closer to the surface of the fabric and fills any divets caused by the weave of the fibers to create a fabric with less/different texture.

Continue this process until the entire garment is waxed!  Here are the pants at the half-way point – you can see the very different texture created by the wax:

Here are the finished pants:

At this point, you could leave it to cure even further than it has or you could proceed to add a second coat of wax.  Sometimes I like to wait a few days to make sure the project is fully and completely cured before adding a thin ‘touch-up’ coat.  This way I can make sure the project is fully water resistant without getting carried away with my second coat and wasting a bunch of wax.

Now that Matt’s Jutland Pants are waxed, they need to be cared for differently than a regular pair of pants.  They can’t be put in the wash of course, because the warm water and soap would remove the wax!  Instead, the waxed pants need to be brushed with a stiff bristle brush to remove dirt.  They can also be placed in the freezer overnight to kill any bacteria and remove any smell (put them in a ziploc bag so they don’t take on whatever smell your freezer might have…mmm frozen soup and lasagna jeans).  If this all sounds a bit weird and maybe a little unhygienic to you, not to worry!  You could carry out this method of cleaning for as long as you can stand and then periodically hand wash the pants by turning them inside out and washing in cold water with a delicate soap designed for hand washing.  Keep in mind that this will likely remove at least a little bit of your wax coating so it is a good idea to keep a bar of Otter Wax on hand to touch up your pants after you’ve hand washed them.  Either that, or you can embrace the gradual wearing of your waxed pants – you’ll notice that as the wax wears off it has greatly assisted in the creation of the coveted worn creases that denim enthusiasts strive for!

There is a considerable history/group of enthusiasts attached to the practice of waxing pants.  Here are a few intriguing links to immerse you in the crazy world of waxed jeans!

• Heather Lou mentions last year’s waxed jeans craze in her Ginger Jeans Sew-Along post about personalizing your jeans.
• A YouTube video demostrating how to wax jeans using Otter Wax – so relevant!
• A post on waxing a variety of fabrics and a discussion of waxed garments from a practical rather than ‘fashion-statement’ standpoint – I linked to this great post when we first launched Otter Wax in our store.
• A discussion about the various techniques suggested for cleaning waxed jeans on Fashionista.

 Rivet Application Tips:

Once I finished waxing Matt’s Jutlands, I added rivets to both pairs of pants.  Here are some tips to accompany Matt’srivet application tutorial.  Keep in mind that, unlike Matt, I’m not very skilled at wielding a hammer so these tips are catered towards people who might be hesitant about using woodworking tools in the sewing room:

• I find the only way I can successfully and strongly apply rivets is to use a very solid metal backing when hammering them in place.  Without the backing my rivets don’t grip very tightly and sometimes fall off after a while.  With the backing, they are SUPER strong.  We use this scrap piece of metal (you can find similar pieces at junk yards, scrap metal stores, or even at hardware stores which often have metal chunks sold as though they were a ‘cutting board’ to use during metal work projects).  Alternatively, you can use the fiddly little metal backers that are often sold with snap and rivet kits in the sewing store.  If you plan to make lots of pants featuring rivets, I highly recommend getting yourself a nice solid and heavy piece of metal – it works WAY better!
• While Matt warns not to hammer too hard when applying your rivets and jeans buttons for fear of tearing through the metal (especially when attaching jeans buttons), I found I had to hammer harder than I was expecting.  That being said, start by hammering your first rivet gently, pause and see if you can pull the rivet apart, and if you can, increase the strength of your hammering gradually until there is no way you can separate the two rivet pieces.  It’s better to air on the side of caution than destroy your little rivet with excessive force!
• Be creative with your rivet placement to create ‘designer’ pants.  I tend to skip change pockets altogether (and have not included a pattern piece for this tiny little pocket with the Jutland Pants pattern) because big manly fingers have such trouble accessing anything placed in that pocket so it just goes unused.  We didn’t want to limit you when using our Jeans & Pants Essential Notions Kit so we included six rivets – enough to secure a change pocket and the two front pockets just as you would find on classic denim jeans.  You can use these six rivets anywhere you like though!  I decided to apply six rivets to my uncle’s back pockets to make them SUPER strong :)

Thank you for joining in on our Jutland Sew-Along!  I hope you’ve had time to finish any pairs you intended as Christmas presents.  I’ll be posting my two pairs of finished pants next week and would love to feature yours on our blog if you have a chance to email or post photos!  Email us at info@threadtheory.ca or #JutlandPants.

First up, we have Matt’s Otter Waxed pants that I made using Variation One of the Jutland Pants pattern.  As you might recall, I adjusted this width of the legs slightly for this version to better suit Matt’s style and proportions.  I tapered them from the knee down to the hem.

I really love how the waxed canvas looks!  The wax gives the fabric such body and depth.  Matt has been wearing these pants non-stop and they have worn in to fit him like a second skin already (in a good way – they aren’t wearing out, they are just getting those desirable creases and that comfortable softness that people strive for with jeans).

These photos were taken on the first day that he wore his new pants so you can see that the wax is creasing in odd areas (see the photo below).  The more Matt wears his pants, the more the wax settles so those creases have disappeared.  The wax has made these pants very warm – it offers a level of protection from the wind and a heaviness that Matt finds really comfortable for frosty walks in the forest.  He got them pretty muddy along the hem on his first walk in them but, once the mud dried, it brushed fully off and he was able to wear his pants for Christmas dinner (with a dress shirt they actually looked quite nice!)!

The second pair of Jutlands that I made are for my Uncle, but, since he lives a province away, my dad graciously modeled them for a quick photoshoot.

This pair was made using the design options from Variation 2.  I added removable knee pads, a screw driver pocket (instead of cargo pockets), a gusset and the optional lining.

Below are a few photos to show you how the pants appear with the knee pads inserted and without.  My dad commented that they looked a little low when he first put the pants on but I told him to kneel and, low and behold, they sit exactly where they are needed to protect the knees (I designed them this way since it bothers me when knee and elbow patches are placed where the joint sits before the joint is bent…it makes the patches completely useless!).

Next is a shot of the reinforced hems.  The pants are a bit short for my dad because I shortened the leg to suit my Uncle’s 33″ inseam.

My dad found that the lack of cargo pockets on this pair elevate these pants from single purpose work pants (such as the orange canvas pair that I made for him) to multi-purpose winter pants that are heavy duty for use in his workshop but nice enough to wear around town.  He’s hoping they don’t fit my Uncle so that he can add them to his ever-growing pants drawer!

The only image I got of the screw driver pocket isn’t very clear but it at least shows you the placement of the pocket – within easy reach!  I mentioned to my dad that the pocket is maybe a little too long for most screw-drivers and that I wished I had shortened it.  He said, for his uses, that he really liked the length because he would rather be able to fit any long tool in the pocket than have a pocket that is too short and causes tools to slip out.  He said, matter-of-factly, that he would simply stuff a rag in the bottom of the pocket if he wanted to use it for shorter screwdrivers.  My dad…always thinking creatively :D.
Now that the sew-along is finished, you can find it on our website here.  I’d love to see your finished Jutland Pants!  Did anyone make them as a Christmas gift?  Nicole is collecting photos of your versions and she’ll be doing a compilation post of all of them some time in the New Year.  Enjoy the rest of your holidays!