Hey, y’all! I wrote this post…. a long time ago. I finally got pictures just now–I was very thankful to see that I had pre-written this post because I could not even tell you what pattern these were made from when I pulled them out of my closet. One wearing update and then I’ll get into the original post: these didn’t get a lot of wear pre-pregnancy but I have been wearing them a ton this past year. I’m a big fan.
Last year (edit from 2021: twenty EIGHTEEN lol) around this time I made a pair of black distressed Ash jeans and I have worn them constantly ever since. However, When I picked my size, I chose to make a 27 waist graded to a 28 in the hips/legs since that is my usual ready-to-wear size and they were teeny tiny! The seams on those jeans are so small since I had to let them out a lot in order to get them to fit. I wanted to make a second pair, sizing up, to get a better feel for the actual fit of the pattern. This size 30 pair fit much better! The only change I made was to take a wedge out of the center back, so I probably should have graded the waist down like I did on my original pair.
The only thing I really dislike about the instructions for the Ash are the zip fly. In my opinion, the Ginger zip fly construction and instruction are much clearer and easier to follow. I do think that the final fly on the Ash is neater on the inside, but there is a lot of basting and unpicking and it’s more fiddly. You can read the photo tutorials and compare the two–you may find the Ash instructions clearer than the Gingers! (Ginger fly tutorial here, Ash fly tutorial here.) Megan Nielsen Patterns, when I asked, told me that their method is “closer to a traditional jeans construction”–so the end result is more similar to the type of fly you find in stores. Based on the flies I see on my RTW jeans, this is accurate–if you take a look at yours you will probably see a seam along the edge of the outside of the fly, which is noticeably missing from the completed Ginger fly. As with (almost) all things sewing, I think this is best left up to personal preference! (For a more complete comparison of the Ash and Ginger jeans patterns, you can read my blog post about them.)
These are made with a stash twill–I think Theory–from Mood that my mom gifted me ages ago. It’s the same fabric as my black Rae skirt (which I’m now realizing never made it onto the blog–but honestly how many Raes do you need to see? haha) and it is slightly less stretchy than the recommended 20% stretch. I’m hoping to break them in and treat them more or less like my raw denim Dawn jeans.
xoxo,