Fit and Sew Custom Jeans

Book excerpt: Fit and Sew Custom Jeans is unique in that it addresses both the order of construction and fit simultaneously. Other books gloss over the fitting, having you guess your adjustments in the flat pattern stage. By the time you try on the jeans, it may be too late to fix areas with poor fit. If you could, you'd need to rip a lot of topstitching, a real chore. Helen uses a combination of tissue-fitting and fabric fitting. This means not using a typical ready-to-wear sewing order. See the chart on what size to choose based on the type of fabric you have. Fill out the Jeans Profile so you consider how fitted you want the jeans for how they will be worn. Prepare the tissue for trying on to determine rise, width, length, and crotch shape. Learn how to gauge how much smaller the pattern can be in width based on a stretch of the denim. There are many ways to do a fly front, but which is best for incorporating fit? This is why the author tested many different techniques using her order to see which worked best. She sewed a total of 31 pair of jeans for herself and others so make sure she was truly giving the best solutions for fit.