Mens grey joggers

These are to go with the Hoody Cowl sweatshirt I made for Mick last weekend. I wanted to have a go at making some joggers for him but I am using the womens free jogger pattern I used for my own joggers.

I made myself several versions of these in sweatshirting and velvet and they go much bigger than my size so I sewed up a muslin in this rather nasty yellow polyester to check the sizing and they seem to fit so I have decided to press ahead and actually cut these from the precious sweatshirting we have left from the top. Because they are from a womens pattern I really do not know if this is going to work but its a decent pattern and when measured against a pair of mens RTW joggers they are identical in size. Mens and womens clothing when it comes to things like joggers are really very similar too. I have cut the lower waist version for Mick though which I never did for myself. Thats seemed more to fit with what he already wears whe I measured the pattern against his existing clothing.

Other than the problems from my overlockers which both decided to break whilst making these they went together well. I realised at Christmas I needed new blades soon but despite this never got round to ordering any. I had finished sewing these and was just attaching the wasitband to the rest when the things decided to stop cutting. I decided to swap to my older overlocker to carry on and that one then nearly recked the trousers by doingt he same thing. I did manage to get the fabric out of the blades ok but there was a right mess. I should have taken a photo to show you realy and to show everyone how you can actually rescue such a mess but I didn't think at the time. I spent a few hours feeling sorry for my self and telling myself I am an idiot because I did know even at New Year when I was making sewing plans that I had to get some new cutters asap. Now I have both my overlockers out of action. Since they were last fixed at the same time as each other, about a year ago, its not at all surprising really. Just stupid of me not to plan better.

So I get out my Janome sewing machine and use a ziga zag to attach the rest of the waistbane and with soem careful sewingmanage to get all that mess I made enclosed inside it. But its more bulky than my usual waistbands. Its does all look OK though because of the different thicknesses inside where some have been cut off and overlocked and the rest just folded under this did make my stitching a bit irregular but I sewed very slowly round the waistband it got it all to work. 

 

I am reasonably happy with the end result and Mick is fine about it and cannto tell there was a problem. I can though. Its not really as good as I want but because it could take 4-6 weeks for the cutters to arrive from China I wated to just finish these so he canwear them. Yes I could buy from a UK seller but I got two sets of top and bottom cutters for less than the price of one UKset and I really cannot afford to spend £40 on one set of blades when I can spend £15.

So anyway the trousers had to be finished by normal sewing machine. I usually do the elastic and final sewing up on a normal machine but attach the waistband with an overlocker to reduce the thickness where they meet. He says they are a bit tight on the shins though. The muslin I made of these were in cheapo poly so probably thats accounts for that because the muslin fabric was much thinner and is actually more stretchy too.

But for a first version these are I think pretty good and it will be easy to make the shins a bit wider on my next pair of these. In fact my original black joggers were also a bit tight on the shins for me but I changed them on subsequent versions. I am actually not so sure they are not a bit too long but he insists they are OK. Length is nt something I want to play with unless I am sure it needs doig because of course once chopped there is not going back. He also does tend to wear everything very low ont he hips so it could be when I took the photos they trousers were ot sitting quite where they are meant to be!

 

Mick has been lounging around in them anyway, and I had to get the photos done quick before they go out of shape. 

Take care, have a great weekend and see you very soon

Bracken