My first foray with Dawn Jeans was a little shaky. They felt too small and the denim was very heavy and stiff, which made it really difficult and stressful to sew. This time I went with some Robert Kauffman 8 oz denim. This was a breeze to sew in comparison and felt like it took half the amount of time. I sewed most of these in a single day. I’m sure some of that is experience, and that was also the pattern I had sewed most recently so it was very fresh in my mind.
To ensure a better fit this time I did knit interfacing on only one side of the waistband. That leaves a bit more flexibility with some structure in the waistband. I probably could have interfaced both sides, but I was erring on the side of caution. For the first pair I interfaced both sides with regular interfacing. Had I understood more about the wight of the fabric and how it would affect the fit, I would have left off the interfacing entirely.
For the inseam, I also made the seam an eighth of an inch narrower than it should have been to make sure the legs would fit better. I cut the same size in both cases–size 14–but I left a little more potential room in the legs for movement. The pattern has you baste the outer leg seam and try it on to check the fit and see if you need to adjust it. For that seam I also made the seam allowance a half an inch instead of five eighths of an inch to start. I ended up making the actual seam between those two measurements in the end.
For this pair the fit was great immediately, but they got much more stretched out within a couple of hours of wearing them. I think with the lighter denim I probably could have made with no size adjustments at all since the fabric relaxed a lot. I had to put on a belt to keep them from sagging in a way I didn’t like. I have stretch jeans on my agenda next, but that will be with more expensive denim, so I wanted to give myself a couple of practice runs first. I anticipate that the stretch denim won’t have as many sizing issues because the fabric can recover easily. I pretty much always purchased stretch jeans before ever attempting to sew clothes, so I’m not sure why I was so set on making non-stretch jeans, aside from wanting to try out a couple of patterns. I do love that Dawn Jeans have tapered leg, straight leg, and wide leg options. There’s a lot of variety to play with. I have some Rag and Bone Denim I got from Mood Fabrics that I will use for my next Dawn Jeans.
