Mean Jean/ Butterick 5682 Review
My wonderful husband bought me Butterick 5682 for my birthday because he knew I had been drooling over it for a while now. Then he took me to the closest Hancock Fabrics to get some stretch denim. I know they're going out of business and the deals aren't really deals, but it was a decent price and I really wanted to see the colors in person as opposed to ordering online, which I'm sure might have been cheaper. Anywho, I bought 3 yards of this lovely dark stretch denim and he washed it for me a couple of times since I had read a couple of reviews about making jeans and they almost all state to wash the denim a bunch to soften it up. He only washed it twice because I thought it was already pretty soft. It is stretch denim, after all.
This pattern intimidated me from the jump. I read through the instructions and it seemed pretty simple except for the fly part, but I went at it with a can do attitude as to not discourage myself. I didn't want this to be a UFO in the long run. So, I got to work!
The stretch denim was wonderful to work with because it's a nice structured fabric. The more I sew, the more I seem to dislike thin fabrics. I like fabric with a little meat on its bones! It just feels like it will last longer than a thin fabric that might rip if you look at it crooked. The version I chose was C, the bootcut. I really love to pair a nice dark bootcut with a fancy top and some nice shoes. Anyways, version C consisted of 10 pattern pieces, all of which I cut in the denim except for the pocket linings and the facings for the waist. I wanted a fun fabric for the lining and that was hard to decide on. I have a ton of smaller remnant pieces that I thought might look good, but I ended up choosing this one:
It's like a hidden party in your pants!
The construction was pretty simple and the denim sewed together very well. I used some gold thread to make these look as authentic possible, but I didn't have a denim needle in my stash, oddly enough. I still have all my estate sale/auction stuff kinda all over the place and they need to be organized like terribly, but I did look through it all and found needles out the ying yang, but no denim one. The insides were sewn with plain black thread because I didn't have a lot of the gold and I wanted there to be enough for the topstitching. The back pockets were fun because I wanted a little 'Sarah Flair' so I used a foam kit thingy that I found at Goodwill on them:
Boom!!!
I also wanted to finish the inside seams with my side cutter presser foot for a more professional look, but I can't find where to buy a replacement blade for my SA177 side cutter preset foot, so I didn't want to wear it out on jeans. Instead, I used a regular overcast foot and it looks pretty good! I did have to wait a couple of weeks for the button because I'm a cheap-o and it only cost like $2 to get 10 buttons from China. And one of them had a cute design on it, so I went with that pack. Hey, I'm broke! The button was interesting to put on and I had tested one on a scrap piece of shorts and it came out ok. You can see the outline of the shank thingy a little bit, but its not horrible. Plus, no one should be looking that close to the crotch part of my jeans. O.o
Overall, this was a pretty easy pattern except for the crotch area, which wasn't really that bad; just a little complicated. Also, I measured myself to see which size to make, and it came out to a size 14. However, I had to take these in twice. Twice! Even after taking them in twice, they were still pretty roomy, which is a good thing, but they were still too big for my taste, so reluctantly I agreed with my husband at his suggestion to take them apart and start again. He's usually right, damn it. But it didn't take long and I only took the legs apart and left the pockets and crotch area intact since they were not the issue. So I laid them out on the cutting board and I took the pattern and cut it for a size 8 and re-cut the legs out. Once I sewed them back together, they were magical!!
These jeans are so freakin comfortable!!! I have literally worn them for the last 3 days in a row to work, which is saying something because I work from home, so I could be in sweat pants or jammies all day. I try not to do that often because I do love to sew stuff to wear and have a closet full of clothes and it literally takes 2 minutes to get dressed. Plus, call me silly, but even though we've been married for a hot second, I still like to look decent around my husband. <3 **Special side note: I just discovered a freakin awesome website and if I hadn't already made the back pockets for these jeans with that stamp thingy, I would have embroidered something from here onto them. Holy crap, I was so happy to find this site! My machine does embroidery very well, but it comes with some standard designs that just are kind of boring. This site has fun amazing designs and they add more every couple of days. They even have freebies for you to try and they will help you figure out which type of file you need for your machine. I bought a couple and did this as my test piece. I am planning on making another pair of these jeans, so this will most likely be on one or both of the back pockets.
This pattern intimidated me from the jump. I read through the instructions and it seemed pretty simple except for the fly part, but I went at it with a can do attitude as to not discourage myself. I didn't want this to be a UFO in the long run. So, I got to work!
The stretch denim was wonderful to work with because it's a nice structured fabric. The more I sew, the more I seem to dislike thin fabrics. I like fabric with a little meat on its bones! It just feels like it will last longer than a thin fabric that might rip if you look at it crooked. The version I chose was C, the bootcut. I really love to pair a nice dark bootcut with a fancy top and some nice shoes. Anyways, version C consisted of 10 pattern pieces, all of which I cut in the denim except for the pocket linings and the facings for the waist. I wanted a fun fabric for the lining and that was hard to decide on. I have a ton of smaller remnant pieces that I thought might look good, but I ended up choosing this one:
It's like a hidden party in your pants!
The construction was pretty simple and the denim sewed together very well. I used some gold thread to make these look as authentic possible, but I didn't have a denim needle in my stash, oddly enough. I still have all my estate sale/auction stuff kinda all over the place and they need to be organized like terribly, but I did look through it all and found needles out the ying yang, but no denim one. The insides were sewn with plain black thread because I didn't have a lot of the gold and I wanted there to be enough for the topstitching. The back pockets were fun because I wanted a little 'Sarah Flair' so I used a foam kit thingy that I found at Goodwill on them:
Boom!!!
I also wanted to finish the inside seams with my side cutter presser foot for a more professional look, but I can't find where to buy a replacement blade for my SA177 side cutter preset foot, so I didn't want to wear it out on jeans. Instead, I used a regular overcast foot and it looks pretty good! I did have to wait a couple of weeks for the button because I'm a cheap-o and it only cost like $2 to get 10 buttons from China. And one of them had a cute design on it, so I went with that pack. Hey, I'm broke! The button was interesting to put on and I had tested one on a scrap piece of shorts and it came out ok. You can see the outline of the shank thingy a little bit, but its not horrible. Plus, no one should be looking that close to the crotch part of my jeans. O.o
Overall, this was a pretty easy pattern except for the crotch area, which wasn't really that bad; just a little complicated. Also, I measured myself to see which size to make, and it came out to a size 14. However, I had to take these in twice. Twice! Even after taking them in twice, they were still pretty roomy, which is a good thing, but they were still too big for my taste, so reluctantly I agreed with my husband at his suggestion to take them apart and start again. He's usually right, damn it. But it didn't take long and I only took the legs apart and left the pockets and crotch area intact since they were not the issue. So I laid them out on the cutting board and I took the pattern and cut it for a size 8 and re-cut the legs out. Once I sewed them back together, they were magical!!
These jeans are so freakin comfortable!!! I have literally worn them for the last 3 days in a row to work, which is saying something because I work from home, so I could be in sweat pants or jammies all day. I try not to do that often because I do love to sew stuff to wear and have a closet full of clothes and it literally takes 2 minutes to get dressed. Plus, call me silly, but even though we've been married for a hot second, I still like to look decent around my husband. <3 **Special side note: I just discovered a freakin awesome website and if I hadn't already made the back pockets for these jeans with that stamp thingy, I would have embroidered something from here onto them. Holy crap, I was so happy to find this site! My machine does embroidery very well, but it comes with some standard designs that just are kind of boring. This site has fun amazing designs and they add more every couple of days. They even have freebies for you to try and they will help you figure out which type of file you need for your machine. I bought a couple and did this as my test piece. I am planning on making another pair of these jeans, so this will most likely be on one or both of the back pockets.
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