Sashiko Inspired Halfmoon 101 Jeans

 Heeey Friends

As always I am so so so excited to share with you my organic raw Denim HalfMoon Atelier 101 Jeans with Sashiko inspired embroidery detail. This was my first time working with raw denim and it will also be my first pair of raw denim jeans. I feel so cool all of a sudden. Lol.

 

The denim itself has an awesome saturated indigo color and as is typical with denim has a white-is underside. Unlike most jeans these days, this denim has absolutely no stretch, so I made sure not to pick a skinny jeans pattern.

I don’t know exactly what weight this demin is, but compared to other denim in my wardrobe, I would classify this as light to medium weight. This is denim from Mind the Maker and I’ve sewn with other Mind the Maker brand fabrics before, so I knew this was going to be quality and quite frankly it didn’t disappoint. Because its raw, I didn’t want to wash it before hand, and I was worried that meant that the denim might bleed as I pressed it, but actually, there was not one instance of dye transfer, which was great, because if you’ve been sewing for any length of time, then you know that sewing is pressing.

Sewing wise, it was great. I mean, to be honest working with denim is always great.  It took a good press and glided through both my normal machine and serger. To be honest I don’t even know what size needle I was using because I didn’t change it from my last project. And since I didn’t change it, I would guess either a 70 or 90? 70’s are generally my go to, because I like to sew with the slimmest needle possible, but there it a chance I had a 90 in there. Needless to say, I did not need a heavy weight 100 for this. However, I also didn’t add any topstitching using proper top stitching weight thread.

I did of course add a tooooon of embroidery inspired by Sashiko, and for that I used a proper Sashiko needle though not so proper cotton crochet thread, because that’s what I had a lot of on hand. I would say the embroidery was a labor of love, but honestly it wasn’t a labor at all. It was a total joy, a couple sessions sitting in the sun slowly stitching away casually watching TV and I was done with all my stitching before I knew it. I had a hard time deciding exactly what kind of design I wanted to embroider and I did reach out to you kind folks, who had some great suggestions and then I saw a picture of this embroidered cat holding a fish, and I absolutely knew it had to go on one of my pockets.

 

In hindsight it miiiight be a little juvenile for my age, but you know what… That cat is loving life with his little fish and I love him for it. Lol. On the other pocket I went with a more ‘conventional’ geometric design. Originally I was just going to do the diagonal chevron lines one way across the entire bottom, but I got bored and decided I need to add some dimension by switching direction midway through. I’m really please with how it turned out, and think I maybe even could have filled up the entire pocket?

The knee patches on the front where the one part that I absolutely knew I wanted to have as a design feature on these pants and I definitely cannot take 100% credit for thinking of them. Back in my mid 20’s I lived in Burkina Faso West Africa for a number of years as a Peace Corps volunteer (which is an American program if you’re not familiar). I have a ton of stories from my experiences there, which I will save for another day, but as I’m sure you can imagine, the clothing was amazing. Everything was so beautiful and creative and over the top. One thing that I very specifically remember is that I had a number of friends that brought their worn through jeans to be mended by their local tailors, and never ever ever, did the jeans come back with just plain solid colored patches. Without fail, there was always creativity infused in the solution. Scraps of beautiful wax print were always used and somehow always applied in an artful way, whether that was via a creative shape, placement or both was up to the luck of the draw and the skill of the tailor. One of my friends specifically got his back with two giant trapezoids across the thigh of one pant leg and down the knee of the other. They looked so good. Well, look at me now, 10 years later and still with that vivid memory - I have finally made my own. Mine of course are not using colorful wax print scraps but the ‘wrong’ side of the denim and then further embellished with more embroidery. Of course there are small adjustments I would make for next time, but overall, I’m pleased as punch with how they came out.

What I’m really most excited about though, is the fact that these are raw denim, so I plan to wear them a couple months before washing, and then I’m hoping when I finally do wash them, they’ll have that unique well worn look that comes with wearing raw denim. So watch this space, 4-6 months from now I’ll probably have an update!

So tell me, have you sewn with raw denim before or tried your hand at a little Sashiko inspired embroidery or mending?



Kten