The jean originated in 1873 and is still one of the most popular pieces in our wardrobes today.

They are part of our capsule wardrobe, but if purchased, are sometimes very expensive and fit poorly.

We'll fit both the stretch jean and the non-stretch jean and compare the differences, so regardless of the fabrics you're using, you'll get the result you want.

Saggy bottoms will be gone for good and details on the back pockets will visually help you drop a few pounds, all today on Fit 2 Stitch.

♪ ♪ [Man] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Vogue Fabrics, Colorado Fabrics, Quality Sew and Vac, Sew Town, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Fort Smith, Arkansas, Kai Scissors, Sew Steady, Bennos Buttons, All Brands, Cynthia's Fine Fabrics, and Clutch Nails.

- Today, we're gonna make jeans, yay!

So many people have said to me, not so many, a few, a one, have said, why would you make jeans?

And I'll tell you what, if I can convince you to make one pair, you'll never go back and buy ready to wear.

Because they're just, you can make them so much better, so much better.

But here is the deal.

Over the years, jeans have evolved and changed.

Used to be, denim was denim, it was cotton, it was woven, it was just simple.

The good news is, we've gotten more variety of denim, so now we have stretch denim, we have denim that stretches in one direction, we have denim that stretches in both directions.

So most likely, you'll want one pattern, but you'll have two different fabrics that you'll wanna make it out of.

And the best comparison I can make is like a blouse and a T-shirt.

But we're gonna use the same pattern, and we can do that, we just have to reduce our size.

So, we're gonna use two models today.

We're actually going to use Jeannie, and we're going to put Jeannie's changes here, and we're gonna use Cindy, and we're gonna put Cindy's changes here.

And we're gonna, the reason I really wanted to use two different body types is so that we could use two different fabrics also.

So we're gonna mix up the body types, we're gonna mix up the fabrics.

Remember, Jeannie is non-stretch, and I'll remind you as we go through the process, and Cindy is stretch.

So then the question comes up, well gosh, I don't want to keep buying patterns, and I don't blame you.

So we're gonna take this wonderful tissue and we're not gonna cut it.

We're gonna leave all the sizes, you know, just pick the size you are by your circumference, however you wanna figure that out, and then you're gonna trace it off.

And it's the easiest thing to do.

So all I'm gonna do is take my tissue, I'm gonna lay it on top of whatever fabric I'm using.

The fabric you will want to get as close as possible to the real garment.

Because to me, denim is so inexpensive, a lot of times I'll just buy two extra yards, or whatever I need, so that I have plenty.

And I'll make my muslin or my trial run exactly in the same fabric.

And that way, I can make sure of my tweaks in the final thing.

Once you do it, you won't have to keep going through the process.

You'll just become more familiar with the fabrics and you'll know whether to use this pattern or this pattern, depending on it is.

If your fabric is dark and you can't see the tracings, just trace it to the lighter side of the fabric.

But these Sharpies are amazing because when you take them and you actually trace on the fabric, it does not hurt your tissue, but you'll notice, when I take this away it traces right onto the fabric below.

So tra-la, I don't have to keep buying fabrics.

I'm just gonna use my marker, I'm gonna trace the size it think I am, I'm gonna make the muslin up, and then I'm going to start my fitting process.

So really easy to do, and that's where we're going to start right now, is both Jeannie and Cindy have made up their muslins, and we're going to drape them.

All right, this is gonna be fun.

We ready, girls?

- [Both] Yes.

- All right, so the first thing I wanna do is just kind of have a conversation about, how'd you choose your size?

Jeannie, how'd you choose your size?

This would be circumference.

- Yes, knowing that I wasn't doing a stretch fabric, I went to a pair of slacks that I liked the circumference of and picked it out based upon the size of the slacks.

- All right, then measured it back to the pattern or compared it back to the pattern and you got what you wanted from there?

- [Jeannie] Yep.

- All right.

And you didn't make any other changes?

You haven't made any other changes besides that, you just picked the circumference and go?

- And I measured a pair of jeans that I had that I liked and went with that circumference.

- And you were stretch, you're non-stretch, and you're stretch, so you measured something that had stretch?

- Yes.

- And you're using stretch fabric.

- I am.

- All right, so we're gonna stretch into these.

And the good news about stretch is, I can grow a little bit.

Every once in a while, I try on my non-stretch jeans and think, hmm, maybe I need to be a little more careful with what I eat.

The stretch ones will allow, anything goes, all right?

All right, so I'm gonna ask you guys to both turn around because when you're fitting, you're always gonna start with the back.

And so I'm gonna ask them to do just that.

What I first want to bring your attention to, and this is my main reason for making jeans, is because I don't know if it's being female or what, but I always want possible rear end to look the smallest I can.

And pocket placement has a lot to do with that because when I go try on jeans and I see a pocket placement that looks like what Cindy has on, I don't even actually take the jeans back into the dressing room.

I actually check out the pockets first before I head back to the dressing room.

And so this is the difference.

If you'll notice, with her pockets, they follow the yoke line.

The top of the pocket follows that yoke line.

That is horrible because what happens is, the end of these pockets are so pointing out that it just makes her rear end look so much larger than what it is.

If we take a look at Jeannie's, you'll notice that they are, this seam here is parallel to the center back seam.

That's what I want.

So that means that the yoke line, if you notice, does not, it is not parallel to the yoke line.

So you can't be parallel to center back and parallel to the yoke line.

Pick the center back, it's going to look so much better.

You'll like lose, quickly, 10 pounds, no time at all.

So we're gonna take these pockets off.

I just wanted to point that out to you.

And now we'll start into our fitting process.

All right, when you all start to fit that back, and the reason we're going to the back first, is because the back has, we're gonna go back to L, C, and D. And the first thing I'm gonna say to Jeannie is, Jeannie, if you'll pull those pants up to where they're comfortable at your crotch.

The pants is kind of divided into two sections.

It's crotch up and crotch down.

Crotch up is fit, crotch down is styling.

So the crotch is where you want, yourself, to put you in the pant in the crotch where it's comfortable and take away from the top if you need to or change the bottom.

But leave the crotch where it is, because it's too many intersecting points to worry about changing that, and I don't need to change it.

It's just, it's too much work to worry about.

So Jeannie, you've got your crotch where you want it?

- [Jeannie] Yep.

- All right, don't every advise women as to where their crotch should be.

That's just not your business.

And we'll go from there.

So the first thing I'm gonna do is because hers is just a little bit too large, I'm going to take in the circumference.

And the good news about jeans, and your making them and your fitting them, is you can decide how tight you want your jeans to be.

It will reflect you, it will reflect your personality.

But just make sure that when you change the side, because that's circumference, I wanna use equally on both sides.

Keep in mind that I am going to, when I finish, I'm going to use this as my pattern.

And so if I change one side without another, this, they won't be equally represented.

If you have some differences about you, then you might be using all four pieces, but keep in mind, for now, we're just going to worry about one side, except if the circumference needs adjustment.

Okay, so we've got it there.

Circumference, you're good, you're comfortable?

- [Jeannie] Yeah, feels good.

- When you're doing this on yourself, you guys, you'll just look into the mirror and you'll say, look at all these wrinkles.

Probably not a good thing.

With Cindy, I'm gonna come over here for just a minute.

And hers is a stretch jean.

And they keep falling down, don't they?

- [Cindy] They do.

- They do.

Okay, so I would actually, because hers is, Jeannie's was okay at the waist, but it was more so we took out of the hips, this is more a size issue.

She's really in too big of a size.

But that's simply because, most likely, I'm gonna say your fabric stretched more than you thought it would.

- [Cindy] It did.

- Okay, so that's the reason why.

I actually wouldn't drape this.

I would go back, I would recut the size, because you're much better off to be as closest in circumference as you possibly can rather than adjusting that when you start to drape.

But in this particular case, I'm just gonna take it in, we'll zip it in all the way.

And the reason I say that is because the way a pattern is graded out, it is not just graded out at the side seams.

So there's lots of things that happen in the crotch, in the waist, in all those places, when you completely change sizes.

So you're much better off to let the pattern do all of those changes and then get into the right size.

Enough said.

Okay, so notice, both of them have these wrinkles all throughout the back leg.

Jeannie's are more severe than Cindy's.

Don't take it personal, just know that the goal is to get rid of the wrinkles.

If you notice, the wrinkles are diagonal, which tells us that it's not length, because length wrinkles will puddle and they'll be equal all the way across.

Circumference wrinkles will also be horizontal, they'll pull.

Diagonal wrinkles mean darting and darting means depth.

So anytime we see diagonal wrinkles, which is all of these funky things in here, we'll always know that the dart is going to be an answer to that problem.

100% of the time, start right at the hip line.

In the pattern making process, when a pair of pants is made from a skirt, the skirt is slashed at the hip line and opened up.

How much to open it up, we don't know, because women gain weight and lose weight through their rear end, for the most part.

But what I'm going to do is pick this up right here at center back.

And what you're going to see is how many of those wrinkles we can get rid of.

Because the wrinkles are under the rear end, after doing this for as many years as I've been doing it, the number one comment I get is, I've got wrinkles under my rear end, how do I fix them?

And everybody wants to fix them where the wrinkles are.

Don't do that, it's not the problem.

The problem's at the hip line.

The center back seam sews to itself.

So what I'm gonna do is just take these and taper to nothing at the side seam.

And just in a minute, I'll show you back on the table where it is on your pattern so you can simply fix your pattern.

If you all did nothing else but fix that one thing, do you see how much better you can get this to be than what typical jeans are in the store, because they have so much that puddles in the rear end.

So this is at the hip line, I'm gonna pick it up the most I can, and you'll know, the most you can is, and I'm gonna taper it to nothing.

Cindy, again, I'm gonna do the same thing with her.

I'm gonna pick it up at the hip line.

And again, you can see, when I'm doing that how much it pulls up that rear end.

All right, so what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna go through, fit them, the back, and then I'll go to the table and make all the changes at one time.

But what I want you to notice is, many of us think, oh, I've got this problem, I've got that problem.

The reason I brought in two people who were different is because, don't make fitting about you.

Make it about pattern versus you.

And typically, what is wrong with these patterns is that there's too much length in the back, and that's where I'm gonna take it out.

So that's the number one place that I want you to go.

100% of the time, start right there.

Place number two, I'm going to reach inside the crotch, because you can still, there's, see some diagonals, and they're coming from the fullest part of her rear end into the leg.

I'm gonna take a dart right at the top of the inseam.

Keep in mind that that particular dart sews to itself.

And so I'm gonna, sews to the front of the pant.

This one sews to itself, the other one sews to the front of the pant.

So I'm gonna fix that in a minute, but in this particular case, I'm gonna take and bring this all the way to the side.

And again, there's a pivot point.

So when I have darts, and pivot points, remember this rule: if a dart can end on the side seam or on any edge of the seam, I don't have to have it in the final product.

So please recognize that you are not going to have horizontal darts running all over your final jeans.

But I am doing them in the pant so that they won't be in my final product.

And in fact, the whole reason of doing a muslin is because I can't do this to my final product.

There's no way to change angles once that pant leg is cut.

And this looks amazing, I mean, look at the difference between the two.

You can really, really see it.

So Cindy, we'll give you that same fix here.

I'm just gonna reach inside your crotch.

Now, the reason you guys can do this on your own is because, gosh, these are pretty standard across all patterns.

And I know, I can hear you guys, you're saying, but why don't they do them in the pattern?

Some patterns do, some patterns don't.

But because every female's body, just the difference between the rear end and the legs and all those differences, you really have to know how to do this so that you can, I call it tweaking, so that you can tweak your own jeans exactly how they need to be.

But it will make such a big difference in how the final product looks and I know you'll be thrilled in how nicely those jeans fit your backside.

Something about women and our backside, we just want it to look the best and the smallest and all those other things that we can.

So again, I'm gonna taper that out to nothing.

And you can see how what it does is, it just goes over the rear end and pulls that back.

It allows the fabric to actually change dimensions, which it can't do without some guidance.

And so we're gonna do those two changes.

I'm gonna go ahead and turn you both around.

Because when I do that inseam, it's really important that it continue to the front.

And so in order for the seam to match, both the front and the back, I've gotta take this front seam I'm going to, do they feel any different, you guys?

- They feel much better.

- Much better.

- You do feel a difference on them?

- [Both] Yes.

- The just, the parts of the pattern match the parts of the body.

- Right.

- That's good news, that's good news.

All right, and both of these ladies have made up pants so this is gonna be really fun, you guys.

So all you're gonna do is follow along and be Cindy juniors and Jeannie juniors, that's the goal.

All right, so this, again, is just to bring up where the back seam was.

Stand up for me, just, just, yeah.

And that's going to make those inseams match.

You don't wanna ease one seam into another.

You want to make them the same and you wanna bring them together.

And I'll do it on Cindy in just a minute.

But with Jeanie, Jeanie's got another little wrinkle right in through here.

I'm gonna take that away.

And you wanna do that exactly where the wrinkle is, in this case, and for whatever reason, who knows, we don't, you know, so many women say to me, why does that do that?

And I do know, but it doesn't matter.

It doesn't really matter.

And a lot of times we'll say, oh, it's because of my tummy, or oh, because of this.

It doesn't matter, doesn't matter why it's wrinkling.

Let's just take care of it and make it look good because once I take care of it, it flattens out your tummy and makes it look incredibly good.

So in this case, with Cindy, I'm gonna do the same thing.

I'm gonna bring this inseam that we did on the back and I'm gonna make sure that that seam matches, the inseam, and then I'm going to taper it all the way to the back.

Looking good.

So now, in her front, notice, she doesn't have any wrinkles there.

So we don't need to make any changes, you get one less change.

All right, so what they're gonna do is go off to their sewing rooms, they're gonna, while I make the changes, they're gonna make up their jeans and we'll see you back here in a minute.

All right?

Perfect.

Thank you ladies so much, it's really helpful to all of us to really have exactly what we need to do and what we need to do in the process.

Women have said to me over and over, do I have to make a muslin?

You do, you do on these jeans because I'm telling you, it's not gonna come out of the package fitting you.

Doesn't matter, the pattern designer, how good, none of that matters.

Okay, I started with Jeanie, so let's start with Jeanie.

Where you wanna make this change, notice, I start in the back, we're gonna start in the back.

And so what I did is, it's right around the curve of this area, it's a the hip line.

We made a little adjustment and we just folded it in.

And in this particular case, all I'm gonna do is taper it down.

Notice that it's, it tapers to nothing at the side seam.

What that means is, it doesn't have to be in our final product.

And what that means is, I don't have any other piece to adjust because the center back seam sews to itself.

The next adjustment I made was at the very top of the inseam.

So here it's going to be, when you are doing this on your tissue, just measure how far down, how large the difference is, and go from there.

And actually, you don't even have to change your tissue.

What I recommend strongly is that you take that fabric that you're using, you stitch the changes, put them back on, then just take it apart and use that as your base, use that as your pattern, rather than coming back to the tissue at all.

So with the side seam, I wanna make sure that I make the changes this way.

Use a French curve.

The French curve always follows the side seam.

I can pivot it up or down, to make sure that it is exact, but I've seen many times where women will just sew that side seam and just kinda eyeball it.

And sometimes when you eyeball it it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

So I'm gonna recommend that, lay this down, get the numbers that start at your waist, take them down to the hip, and really make sure that's accurate.

All right, so this was Jeannie.

Once I changed that in the inseam, notice, I came over to this portion of the inseam.

And I wanna make that same exact change.

Where it is, how much it is, is important because I have the same changes, I just wanna make sure that I change them on the tissue.

One more change with Jeannie.

Remember that right here in this front inseam she had a little dart here as well.

Now, so there's some important things to notice.

Number one, all of these are depth issues.

Most likely, all of your changes on jeans will be depth issues because you notice, you can pick your circumference, and we did that, and you can take them and put them at the crotch, and that's length, and we did that.

But then from there, depth takes over, and that's where the fun begins, I'll say it.

All right, then with Cindy, this was Cindy, we had a little dart here at center back.

And I can tape that down.

We had the same at the top of the inseam.

Just be sure to measure how much they are, where they are.

You want this at the top of the inseam because what this particular change is doing is it's actually pivoting the leg to be where you want it to be.

So we're gonna make that change.

That comes around to the front of the inseam, on the front of the pant.

And those are the only changes she had.

And I'm telling you, you guys saw it, that makes a huge difference between before and after.

It's just amazing, the difference that it makes.

So please take the time, make that muslin.

The ladies have changed, they've got their muslins back on, their real pants back on, and I'm gonna bring them out because in this process, the most important thing, ladies, come on out, is that you really need to be patient with this process.

So Jeannie, for instance, we're gonna turn around and look to the back.

She hasn't finished her pant, just so you know that, she hasn't finished her pant.

But look at that butt, oh my gosh, it loos so good.

But just know that when she made up the first pair, there was a little thing that she didn't like, and this was her second pair that she made up.

But with Cindy, she's only made the first pair.

And so I wanna show you what happens sometimes.

Because hers isn't as good as we want it to be, so again, they're better than many, and her pockets look amazing, and look at how they're not parallel to the yoke, yay, Cindy's got a smaller rear end.

But what I wanna show you is, come back in and sometimes, right at the bottom of the curve of that, of the inseam, I want you to take a dart right there.

Now, it's not at the hip line.

You could, if you want to, do this in the first pair.

I don't know that it matters or not, but sometimes it will show and you will not like the way the way it looks.

Don't go tot the hip line and take it up more, don't go to the inseam.

But you see the difference that makes?

So be patient that sometimes you will need a second pair to get that right.

But again, once you have it, oh my gosh, we're ready to go.

Thank you ladies so much.

Was it fun?

- [Both] Yes.

- Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay.

All right, so I just wanna show you one thing and some details that are particular to jeans.

And that is, especially if I'm trying to do a denim that looks from the store, you're gonna serge your seam, typically, you'll serge it, or just on the sewing machine, even, if you sew that seam.

Put both seams to the same direction and then do the flat fell, which is two stitch lines.

Keep in mind that when you do jeans, the inside seam is done with this flat fell.

The outside seam is not done with the flat fell.

Now, that was, dated back to, literally, Levi Strauss when what they were made for was cowboys.

And as they got on that horse, the inseams were always rubbing away.

So they doubled the inseam on the inside and they left it single on the outside.

And today, all these whatever hundreds of years later, they still do it that way.

So just kinda keep that in mind and know that's the case.

The other detail I wanna show you is the waistband.

When we create this waistband, leave one edge raw.

And I always use the salvage, I just use the salvage because you don't have to finish that edge.

You're gonna fold it in half, you're gonna tuck a seam allowance under, and then finish one edge.

And when you finish that edge, you'll notice that you don't do right sides together and flip it up.

You'll notice, with all jeans you can kind of rub your thumb under there and see that that is just lapped and stitched.

It's called an edge stitching, we've shown it before with blouses and collars, the same thing is done with the waistband.

Be sure you do that on the jean.

A list little detail here is, down the side, it's very hard to see, but it's always done on the back side of the jean and it's done about seven to nine inches down and it's to hold that seam pocket to the back.

So make sure that is inclusive as well and you'll be in great shape because your jeans will just look like all those in the store.

They are so much fun to wear and they're fun, I think, to decorate however it is you want to.

Belt loops, if you decide to do them, there's typically five.

And you know what's funny to me is, it's not just on one pair.

You can go and look at 100 different pairs of jeans and they're all done the same way.

I think it's fascinating.

But the belt loops, if you decide you're gonna put them at center back, you're gonna put them just two inches shy of the side seams, and then, of course, they go right at the front on the pocket.

And the reason that's done that is to just stabilize that pocket a little bit and hold it in place.

So belt loop in the front, two in the front, three in the back, we'll be in great shape.

And personally, I think, for a lot of us, we say, oh, I'm not gonna wear a belt, I don't need belt loops.

But I think belt loops are a detail that really needs to be on that pant.

Even if you don't wear belts, I think they just look better, I think it's really the way to go.

The skirt and the cardigan are the simplest of the capsule wardrobe and just great places to play.

Join us next time as we fit, sew, and design great cardigans and skirts, right here on Fit 2 Stitch.

(upbeat classical music) - [Man] Fit 2 Stitch is made possible by Vogue Fabrics, Colorado Fabrics, Quality Sew and Vac, Sew Town, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Fort Smith, Arkansas, Kai Scissors, Sew Steady, Bennos Buttons, All Brands, Cynthia's Fine Fabrics, and Clutch Nails.

To order a four-DVD set of Fit 2 Stitch series seven, please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.