Snip, snip, snippety-snip!  The toile stage approaches this weekend, so hopefully everyone has the basics of their pattern sorted and their test fabric washed and ready to go.

I cut out my Ottobre jeans pattern earlier this week and made some style adjustments as I went.  I was following some of the very helpful advice that Morgan provided for the style pages, re. rise, yoke and pockets.  The front pockets on the pattern are quite horizontal - not a good look for me as it points directly outwards to my distant outer perimeter, as it were.  I've changed them to be more diagonal instead, deepening them on the side seam.  I've recut the pocket facing and pocket bag pieces to reflect the new shape.  Also, note on the side seam of the front leg the slightly different lines for left and right legs - my right leg is 1" larger than my left at the very top of my thigh, enough that I need to make an allowance for this in the garment.  If, like me, you have large or prominent thighs, it's worth measuring just in case you aren't symmetrical either.

Here's a shot of the alteration I made to the back yoke - it doesn't look like much on the toile, but it should be sufficient to give a more flattering line for me at the back.

I haven't cut my back pockets yet as I want to concentrate on the fit of my jeans first.  Once I'm happy with that, then I'll think about where to slap the pockets.  I'll be adding a page to the blog shortly with some more super advice from Morgan on pocket styles and positioning.

A couple of final things.  When you're transferring markings to your toile from the paper pattern, don't forget to transfer your grainlines and make them longer, if possible.  Seems obvious, but it's a mistake that I've made a few times in the past and although you can guess where the straight grain is, it's just easier to get it done at the start.  The other one is about metal jeans zips.  If you haven't used these before, I'll be adding some handy hints on them as they are disastrous to sew over and will break your needle, unlike a forgiving nylon zip.  You won't need pliers or any special implements for dealing with them, just a slightly different method for shortening them if you need to do so.