Pattern Review – Ginger Jeans by Closet Core Patterns

Skinny jeans are dead! Ok, I lied….

So this season has been all about jeans for me. I had an off the blocks victory with my Halfmoon 101 jeans and thought I could conquer the world! I quickly moved onto the Muna and Broad Noice jeans in a high leg wide leg and declared that skinny jeans were dead.

And now I am admitting I was wrong. I wear my Halfmoon jeans a lot, but have discovered after a few wears that I find the Noice jeans really unflattering on me and have felt myself longing for my standard uniform skinnies…

Cue the Ginger

It seems that this pattern has got a bit of a cult status in the home sewing world. There are some immense examples of Ginger jeans sewn across Instagram and so without doing any checking I deciding this was the skinny jeans pattern for me.

I hunted around for some denim with the right amount of stretch and settled on the some Cone Mills S Gene denim.. It is lush – you can check it out on Miss Maude.

The pattern I used was the mid waist version. You can buy this in either a printed format or PDF. There is also a high waist version but you have to buy a different pattern for this.

Ginger jeans by Closet Core Patterns - technical drawings

Pattern & INSTRUCTIONS

The pattern comes with 2 leg styles, stove pipe (view A) and Skinny (view B). I chose to make the skinny leg. The pattern itself has some good lines – especially the shape of the yoke but the pattern needed a lot of tweaking and the instructions were really lacking.

On the fit, I chose a 16 and graded up to an 18 on the waist to account for my c-section tum. I found that the rear of the jeans fitted really well and I didn’t need a sway back adjustment. I did add 1cm to both the front and back crotch curve and I ended up taking about 4″ out of each leg to get the skinny looik. As you can see below, I don’t have unusually skinny legs. There is just way too much ease in them.

Sewing Process

Having very recently made a few different pairs of jeans, I felt confident getting started on this. I checked out the pattern sizing and settled on a 16.. My usual CC size and graded up to an 18 on the waist for the comfort of my c-section tum.

Inside of the closet core ginger jeans - sewn by oh sew fearless with a blue leopard print lining

There are some neat little things about this pattern, one of them being the shape of the pockets. The pockets, along with some other areas of fabric prep are one of the first things you will do as you follow the instructions. Heather Lou has included some great pattern designs to be stitched onto the pockets if that’s your thing so make sure you check that resource out.

I got into a pickle fairly early on with this pair. As with all the jeans I have made, the pockets on the front leg are the first ‘real’ bit of sewing you will come to.

For the life of me, I couldn’t work out what the instructions were telling me. In my head, I knew what I needed to do based on the other jeans I had sewn but this just wasn’t clear. So I headed to the sew along thinking some pictures would clear up my confusion quickly. Wrong..

The sew along was using a completely different pocket set up to the pattern. Even different pattern pieces for the pockets that were not in my file. Somewhere along the way the pattern must have changed, but the sew along not. Not helpful, and only confused me a lot more. I ended up referring back to my other jeans patterns to double check my thinking and I sewed based on that. Turns out that was the right thing to do. Phew!

Not out of the woods yet though because after this came the fly….

I have sewn quite a few Closet Core patterns now and I do find that when there are fiddly bits I do need to refer to the sew along images – on the Carolyn PJ collar for example. I don’t know if it is me, or the way the pattern instructions are written, but this isn’t a problem that I have with other pattern cos. The same was true when I came to the fly. The fly sewing steps were more complicated than I have sewn before, but with no different outcome. I again got myself very confused and having unpicked a wrong line of stitching for the third (yes 3rd!) time I was honestly ready to mothball this project. Time for a break…

I came back to the jeans a day or so later and had another attempt and this time got through it all with a well sewn fly, but wobbly top stitching in places as the denim had over stretched with all my unpicking! Argh!

After this I didn’t encounter any further problems with the instructions!

Skinny jeans - ginger jeans pattern by Closet Core

Ginger Jeans pattern review by oh sew fearless

Ginger Jeans – worth the hype?

So, here I am, having pronounced the style dead, having had a super frustrating sew,… but already with these being the me made jeans I have worn the most.

There is no question, the Ginger jeans are well known for a good reason. They are a very flattering style and didn’t need a heap of fit alterations.. Legs aside. I did cut the pattern with 1cm added to the crotch curve of both front and back, knowing this is an area I usually need this. I didn’t need to fiddle with the Yoke or do a sway back as I did with the others and this part of the jeans is especially well drafted.

The fit through the hip is flattering and they are really comfy to wear.. But would I endure making these again?

Yes… but I would do a few things differently.

‘I would sew the pockets using the Halfmoon Atelier instructions.. Or trust my instincts/memory
I would ditch the closet core fly method and use Leila’s method (in a sew along ‘ here ‘ for the noice jeans) or the Halmoon one… also in a sew along. The same pieced are used for all patterns but the steps taken so much easier and more clearly laid out in the others
I would remember to sew on my belt loops before I lose them… haha.. Did anyone spot there were missing in my image. Personally I prefer Leila Sews method for sewing these on.