Brown Birkin Flares

There's a part of me that feels like "For the love of God,  Carolyn, stop making pants!" but there's another part of me that says "Make all pants, all the time!"  To be fair, there was a real gap in my wardrobe when it came to pants.  I grew out of many pairs over the last couple years and while I had some cropped pairs that I could wear in the spring and summer, I didn't have a whole lot of options for colder weather.  That may partly explain my pants making spree but you know what else explains my pants making spree?  I just really like making pants.  The most intimidating part is definitely the fitting aspect but once you have a pair that fits, the actual sewing isn't bad.  Yes, it's a bit time consuming, but it's definitely worth it in the end.

And with that diatribe, allow me to introduce my latest pair of pants - dyed brown Birkin Flares.  The fabric was once white stretch Cone Mills denim that I purchased with the idea to dye it another color. I originally used some Dylon dye but it came out more of a clay color so I dyed it again with Rit, using significantly less water in my washer, and it came out much closer to the color that I was looking for.  To be honest, it's still a little a lighter than I was originally hoping for and I may just end up throwing it in the dye pot (otherwise known as my washing machine) once again.  The good news is that this is my second pair of jeans that I've dyed and I'm happy to report that the dye seems to be holding up well in the first pair so I'm hoping that it will in this pair too.

This certainly isn't my greatest sewing job. The top stitching ain't perfect, the rivets gave me a super-hard time for the first time ever (don't look to closely at them!), and the waistband is not as tidy as I would like it, but the pants are still super-wearable and I imagine that they'll get a lot of use.  I made a size 30 once again and took some width out of the leg below the hip all the way down the leg to reduce the size of the flare.  Some of my past pairs seemed to have shrunk a bit in length after repeated washings (despite pre-washing the fabric) so I left this pair a little on the longer side in case they decided to shrink up a bit as well.

And that may be a wrap on my pants making for a while, especially since I want to spend February stash busting through some scraps and that generally means sewing for the kids, since tiny people allow for the use of tiny scraps of fabric.