Guest Blogger: Erato (Muse of Very Long Legs)

Note from Clio: Today, Erato will blog while I am en route from Athens to Venice. The muses are truly a brave bunch, throwing caution to the wind and plunging into a project. Erato is on a quest for the perfect pair of jeans, knocked off from here favorite jeans. She has never made pants before, except for Kwiksew pajama bottoms.

Anyway, notice how my darling sister - while stating that she is not jealous - has managed to point out that, by the way, she happens to be younger and taller than yours truly. Siblings! At least she didn't say skinnier (which she also is). Erato, I can't wait to see how these jeans turn out.

Taking the Plunge: Jeans

Erato here, guest blogging once more for Clio while she gallivants across the globe (No, I'm not jealous. Really. :P)I am Clio’s six-foot-tall, younger sister. I have a serious addiction to stretch denim but unfortunately, due to my height, my options are very limited. I spent all winter long hiding my several-inches-too-short skinny jeans under knee high boots. Unfortunately, the arrival of Spring pretty much ruined my wardrobe when boots went out of season so this year I decided it was high time I started making my own jeans.


My first pair was decidedly a practice muslin. I took apart a pair of short jeans I had been wearing - and which fit great- to use as a template. The jeans didn’t come out anywhere close to wearable, but I did learn a lot while making them. I am now a master at ripping out stitches, I have a pretty good concept of the right order to put the pieces together, and, most important, I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of adding a seam allowance. The only problem that I ran into that I couldn’t figure out was that waistband was about 4 inches too small!



Anyhow, I’m just in the beginning stages of my second pair of blue jeans muslin and I’m really hopeful that these ones will actually fit! So far, I’ve done a few things differently (hopefully better) than my first pair. I’ve started out with much stretchier denim so hopefully they will be snug but wearable, which is how I want them. Secondly, I sketched out my pattern on paper and cleaned it up quite a bit. I also remembered to add about ¾ of an inch on all sides for a seam allowance. The only other tweak I made so far is that I made the waistband a lot longer. I still don’t know why it was so small last time, so I’m not taking any chances. Worst case scenario (that might be an optimistic statement) I’ll have to trim it down a bit before attaching it.


Wish me luck!