Dawn Jeans

Yes, I know what you’re thinking – does this girl make anything BUT pants?? I find tops a little boring to write about to be honest – most of my tops are basic shell tops or t-shirts and aren’t exactly the most involved makes, which makes them difficult to write about.

Jeans however, absolutely fall into the involved make category. Specifically, the 90s “mom jeans”that are all the rage at the moment (I’m very pleased with this as I was learning how to human in the 90s and missed this trend the first time around). No matter which store I went to, I honestly could not find a pair of these jeans that I wanted that fit me properly. They were all either too lose in the waist, or too tight in the thighs. After spotting the very fabulous upcycled pair of Dawn Jeans by @adaspragg on Instagram, I knew what I had to do.

I spent months scouring op shops for a suitably unsalvageable (I try not to thrift items to upcycle unless there’s clear damage and the garment is unlikely to be purchased) pair of men’s denim jeans, and lucked out in January with a pair of Levi’s at my local Savers! This particular pair was completely frayed at the hems and pockets and had already been altered at least once.

Next, to actually get a pattern. I already had the Ginger Jeans pattern by Closet Case Patterns but they’re for stretch denim, so my mum came to the rescue and spoiled me for my birthday with the print copy of Megan Neilsen’s Dawn Jeans pattern. Unpicking the jeans took a while – I wanted to keep the pockets together and repurpose the fly, so wasn’t able to just cut them up. I also kept the original belt loops, tags, leather patch and waistband for this project.

When I initially took my measurements for this pattern, I came in at a size 4 but still did a calico toile of the legs – I wasn’t worried about the waist fit, but was worried that the seam allowance and my thighs wouldn’t be friends. The sizing was actually spot on at the time so I proceeded with this size but unfortunately, I went down an entire size during Melbourne’s first COVID-19 isolation period, and they’re now a little loose – more on that below.

The first steps were relatively straightforward – fly construction with a zip using the instructions from the handy Ash Jeans tutorial on Megan Neilsen’s blog, seeing as the Dawn is technically a button fly (my next pair will be that I think). This tutorial is also perfect for the Dawns, so if that many buttonholes is a turnoff, there is an alternative!

Remember how I said I kept the pockets? I somehow, utterly forgot to slip the pocket pattern piece in with the front leg piece to create the full pant leg shape when cutting out, meaning I accidentally snipped off some of the pocket! Luckily I still had the pieces and just sewed them back in and it adds to the vintage vibe.

For the back pockets, I opted to leave them off until right at the end, so that I could get their placement perfect – @sarkirsten has a really helpful post on her Instagram page about how important pocket placement is, and I wanted to get it looking right. Especially as my back pockets have a special feature. Upcycled jeans are not a new concept, and you’ve probably seen a few pairs floating around with pockets where you can see the unbleached denim outline of where the pocket sat on the original pair. Now, my thrifted pair were pretty heavily bleached and the contrast was not pretty, especially given how large the original pockets had been. I actually decided to use the WRONG side of the back legs for my back legs to hide the bleach contrast on the right side. The back legs do look a little paler than the front as a result but you’ll only notice now that I’ve pointed it out. This has also given a cool little double back pocket effect from the original outline and then my smaller pockets! Also, side note – I am really happy with the back fit!!

The next big step was waistband construction. If you’ve read my Ginger Jeans post, you’ll know that waistbands and I are not good mates. I think my real issue is that I need to do a sway back adjustment, but it’s taken me a few pairs of pants (including this one) to work that out. The Dawn Jeans waistband is already slightly curved, so I decided to run with it. I wanted to reuse the original waistband, which was significantly narrower and also straight, so I flattened it out and just cut the outer piece on the original. I have the original fold line of the waistband running at an angle across the front of the new waistband which actually looks really cool, if I do say so myself! In the time between making the jeans and writing this post, I have decided that the waistband is still a touch too loose, so I have inserted some elastic into the waistband to tighten it up – my pal @melt.stitches made a handy tutorial on doing this and it’s on her IGTV.

Once the waistband was in, I needed to force all those layers of thick denim through my machine to topstitch – after some hammering and hand cranking, we got there in the end. The finishing touch was adding the original belt loops and leather patch back on! I got very lucky with keeping the original hardware in some bits of the jeans, so I have left some of it in and got to skip that step in construction.

I’m really happy with these jeans – they are so comfortable and have stood up to a good few days of sitting and working from home during the pandemic, which is definitely a big plus when it comes to jeans. I think I’ll size down on my next pair and actually do a sway back adjustment to see if it resolves my waistband dramas once and for all! If you’re looking to make a pair of nonstretch jeans, you cannot go past the Dawns from Megan Nielsen!