Bias Jeans Part II--Some Juicy Details!

Working on the jeans today...I want to show you some detail shots of stuff you can take advantage of whe you're working with a pair of deconstructed jeans (bias or not!)...

First of all, you don't have to sew the coin pocket onto the denim facing, because it's already attached! I decided to take off the little "T" logo that was stitched onto the coin pocket. 

Instead of taking time to use a seam ripper to take the old pocket bag off the denim facing, I just trimmed around the edges with a rotary cutter.

Remember those rivets I had to cut around to get the jeans apart?  I trimmed off the edges that I had to cut into to get around the rivets.  Because I'm working with a larger size men's jean, the pockets were really deep compared to the front pockets on my jeans--so there is room on the top edge and side seam edge to trim off denim that's been sliced to work around rivets. 

After trimming off the top edge, I lined the denim facing on the right side of the pocket bag and pin in place.  Then I flipped the pocket bag so that the wrong side of the pocket bag is face up.  That way I could see how much of the denim facing I had to trim along the side.

After trimming the denim facing to fit the pocket bag, I topstitched along the edge of the denim to hold it in place on the pocket bag.

...Be careful not the make two left pockets.... Because I used blue chambray fabric that doesn't really have an obvious right or wrong side I made two lefts.  (I took the denim facing apart that didn't have the coin pocket on it and made a right pocket!)

Moving onto the front fly zipper.  I am going to use the fly zipper pieces from the original jeans (no pattern pieces required!)  The left fly piece that ends up being sewn behind the zipper already has a finished end and the right fly piece has a neat curved end.  So, I'll just shorten both pieces at the top.

I measured my zipper seam allowance (which was 4 1/2") --I'm going to cut my fly pieces an extra 1/2" longer (5"). 

Here is the right fly piece sewn to the right leg. (Notice the cool curved edge already finished and ready to go!)  The zipper is sewn to the the seam allowance on the left leg. Keep the left fly piece handy to attach after the topstitching is complete.

Here's a close-up of the front fly topstitching...

See how the topstitching catches the bottom of the zipper twill tape...This is a good way to anchor the bottom of the zipper.  The fly topstitching holds the right fly piece in place.    The only thing left to do is to attach the left fly piece.