DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long

dem jeans part 5: back pockets & yoke

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long

 

You mastered the button fly! Today? Things are a little easier. Just a couple back pockets and a yoke. The easiest installment in our journey. Chillaxin’.

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Remember when we were cutting and marking, and I talked about marking back pockets? You really can mark them all kinds of ways – using a sticky washaway stabilizer, using templates of cardboard or ironed-on freezer paper, using carbon or wax tracing paper – et cetera. Since I am making three simple straight lines on the back pocket, I snipped at the top line mark. I will use a piece of masking tape for a guide to sew my first line:

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Then, I use the foot edge to sew the second two lines. You could use tape, chalk, etc. Believe it or not, I am not super-exacting with topstitching jeans. The boldness of the topstitching lends it to looking good, even when things aren’t perfect.

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Serge the raw edge of the facing for the pocket, then iron the facing to the pocket, right-sides together. Use a gauge to measure where you press, and make sure the pocket size matches the template.

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Stitch from the facing fold to the serged edge of the facing, carefully back-tacking at each end of this seam:

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Then clip and grade the seam, leaving the pocket body seam allowance wider than the facing’s allowance:

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Iron the seam allowances with plenty of steam, making sure the pockets are the same size.  Then, topstitch the pocket at the top folded edge. Pull the threads to the backside of the pocket, tie them off, and thread them in between the layers:DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Next, mark the topstitching position using a template, gauge, or by hand. Here, I mark the inner topstitching line, with a top curve common to many jeans. For the outer topstitching line, I will be using the edge of my foot, and the needle position, to achieve accurate results:

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke

Pin the pocket to the marked back pocket position on the jeans body (this is where you want to sandwich your little jeans tab or label between the pocket and the jean). After topstitching, leave long tails to bring to the back, tie, and thread between the layers:

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
After topstitching, use a toothbrush (um… a toothbrush saved for ONLY this job!) to gently brush out the chalk marks:

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Here is the backside of the pocket – you can barely see the knots at the top of the topstitching lines, as well as my wax-traced placement marks (in faint pink):

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Next, we will be sewing the yoke. Make sure you have your yoke right-way up and with the outseams matching the backside of the pants! And remember, we want to secure the serge at the outseam of the yoke, so we don’t have a messy bunch of threads on the inside of the jean. You can see this serged-and-secured raw edge in the right of the photo:

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke Text DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Pin the yoke and pants back piece together, and stitch. Serge and secure:
DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke
Press, topstitch, knot the topstitch thread and pull it in between the jean seam layers:

DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & YokeHere is the inside of the jeans. No messy threads!
DEM JEANS Sew-A-Long: Back Pockets & Yoke

I told you this was an easy entry! We will be finishing the jean in our next entry. 

As always, post any comments here in the post, or email me.

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