BudaStyle 6006 - Anita Jeans

Last week, I offered to sew my first born a pair of jeans. She has been content with her Gap “Sexy Boot” and True Religion jeans, so I was surprised when she accepted.

To start, we reviewed the jeans patterns in my Burda and Ottobre Woman magazines. She declared each of them to be “Mom” jeans due to their high waists.  My other patterns weren’t considered as the sizing is much too large for her.  Besides, she would not have liked the styling of those any better.  Also rejected was the popular Jalie 2908 jeans pattern.  We ended up on the BurdaStyle website and found the Anita jeans pattern.  She liked the design, and for only $4.00, I felt it was a good place to begin.

Based on the measurements of her Gap jeans, I made a size 40 (equivalent to US size 10) muslin, lengthened the legs by ½” and made the pattern slightly boot cut by adding 1” to each side of the leg and tapering to the knee markings.  She liked the two back pocket styles that came with the pattern, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of time making a fancy pocket for an unproved pattern. After all, I don’t know if the jeans will fit or if she will even like them.  So, I drew a traditional back pocket pattern and used that instead.  I also made a fly shield pattern for the zipper.  It wasn’t included in the Anita pattern but I felt the jeans would have a higher chance of acceptance if they looked like “normal” jeans. 

The denim came from JoAnn’s. This particular denim wouldn’t have been my first choice but the stretch denim was way too stretchy and the rest was too thin, or had some other issue (like ugly embroidery). This was the only dark, and appropriate for jeans, denim that they had.

I cannot say how well written the Anita pattern instructions are.  I printed them out but the font was small and irritated me, so I set them aside.  I constructed the jeans front and the back; sewed them together and attached the waistband. Easy. This was a great project for the Thanksgiving weekend – nothing too complicated and lots of natural stopping points.

I finally had a chance to use a new-to-me technique for the jeans zipper.  Debbie Cook has a jeans fly/zipper tutorial on her blog, Stitches & Seams.  It is easy to understand and the results are wonderful!  Thank you, Debbie!

The Bernina 930 is handling the layers of denim with no problems.  I love that machine!  I still need to topstitch the waistband.  Also, the belt loops, rivets, and waist button need to be attached.

Maybe she will model the completed jeans for us….we’ll see…