Me Made Maying in some Ginger Jeans

Me Made May has been going on for quite a few years, but up until this year I had never participated. Honestly, my reason for not joining in was dumb: I didn't want to bore people with what I wore. There are so many people who make beautiful dresses and skirts and I just wear jeans and a t-shirt five days out of the week, the opposite of fanciness and excitingness. But then I thought, "this is what I wear every day, this is why I make so many causal clothes, and I should share this with everyone because this is my real life." Sooooo that's whats up.


The one piece of clothing that I needed for my wardrobe was jeans. I knew it before MMM, I've known it for years. Yes, I was one of those people who was intimidated by sewing jeans despite seeing twenty million pairs of Ginger Jeans blowing up the World Wide Web accompanied by proclamations of "it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be." Now, that I have two pairs of Gingers under my belt (no pun intended) I can officially join the latter camp.


I was really fortunate to have been contacted by Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics in Berkeley, California. They asked if I would be interested in sewing up the Gingers with their fabric and using their denim kit and of course I said yes. Without their offer I probably wouldn't have made jeans and would procrastinate for thirty MMMs and just be wearing Levis everyday :/ So, thank you Stonemountain! Hearts hearts hearts. Anyway, I am a huge fan of their store and always stop in when I'm in the Bay Area. Funny story, I ran into my ex boyfriend when my husband's band played at The Gilman in Berkeley. I told him that he needed to check out Stonemountain and that I loved the store and the girls who worked there and blah blah blah. My husband kindly reminded me that my ex probably didn't sew lol. What can I say, I get excited when my mind turns to fabric! :P


Let's talk about this denim. It's black, as I'm sure you're already aware, and I am proud to report that it did not fade/lose color one bit when I prewashed. I know this because I threw a Color Catcher in the wash (along with some vinegar!) and it came out white. Yeahhhhh buddy. This makes me happy and makes me feel confident that I can wash these pants with the rest of my laundry without worrying that my other stuff is going to get an unintentional dye job.

This fabric has the perfect amount of stretch (70% cotton, 28% polyester, 2% spandex) and doesn't seem to bag out much after wear. It's soft and comfy and I'm stoked on the quality. Actually, I'm so stoked on their denim selection that I bought some (non stretch) fabric to make the Morgan's too.

There isn't a lot to say about the actual pattern that hasn't already been said. My wearable muslin (I'll show you guys them at some point on this blog, I'm sure) was full of mistakes and it took me longer than expected to sew up. Sewing with denim, using lots of top stitching, inserting a fly front zipper, using a hump jumper (the weirdest sewing tool name I've heard), and installing rivets were all completely foreign to me and I slowly worked my way through the pattern. I relied a lot on the online sew along photos, but didn't really reference the Ginger Jeans E-Book that I had purchased a while back. My second pair (the one you're looking at) was sewn up much quicker and with a lot less confusion and head scratching. I'm glad I made two pairs back to back!


The only changes I made from my muslin was to go down a size and shorten the legs by three inches. My first pair was baggier than I wanted. This was confirmed when my sister asked if my jeans were supposed to be skinny jeans or boyfriend jeans... My second pair is borderline high water status which is the look I was going for, seriously. I love pants that are this length and now that I can make my own (high five) I'm going to make them however I want!!!!!!


Stonemountain is so generous and offered my blog readers a coupon code to use on their website. Use coupon code MISSCC15 to get 15% off your total purchase. Just throwing it out there, these jeans kits are all amazing if you hate gathering supplies as much as I do and this corduroy is the best $45 (I bought three yards) I've spent on flower fabric ever.

So, which camp are you in? The camp who has sewn jeans and feels it was no problem or the camp who is hesitant to get started?