Thursday 12 September 2019

Ottobre boy jeans

The reason I ended up with a couple of Finnish and German back issues of Ottobre magazine was that I'd been on the hunt for a new boy jeans pattern.

My previous favourite, which I still love, was Burda 9406. I made a few of those for P (here and here), and then topped out last year with the final size 10.  And they're now outgrown...



I often read of the difficulty of sewing for opinionated tweenage girls, but how about lovely tweenage boys who will happily wear almost anything but are overlooked by pattern designers? 

So many kid patterns top out at about size 12, or less, and most grown up patterns won't do until at least 16 or so. There's a little gap there for the boys, and Ottobre seems to be one of the only companies that's filling it. 


These are pattern 36: Straight Cut Jeans from Ottobre 1/2016. I'd purchased this magazine and the other I used for A's tops because they both had a boy's jeans pattern, going all the way up to size 170cm. This one for rigid denim, and the other one for stretch denim.

And I just happened to have some great black rigid denim in the stash. It came from Rathdowne Fabrics ages ago as water damaged stock, but after a wash it looks perfect to me.


There are some cool topstitching details like the extra pocket yoke, and the knee darts which are actually shaping darts not just decorative stitching.


The back pocket pieces are chopped apart, seam allowances added and then stitched back together to cool effect.

You've got to love topstitching to make jeans and I always do. At least up until attaching the belt loops and then it all gets a bit sweary. Using a shim helps a lot but it's still a pain.

That, and hammering in jeans buttons. I hate that job so much that I have now tracked down a die set adapter for my older style snap press and a set of jeans buttons dies. Next time it's going to be a breeze!


I've made a straight size 150 as per his measurements and they look like they should fit for a little while, yet there's no elastic and they're not falling down. Moving away from elastic in the waistband of your pants seems to be the young male rite of passage as far as home sewing goes!

Having said that, his favourite pants to wear, that he reaches for every time, are the elastic waisted Oliver + S Field Trip cargoes. And thankfully I've still got a size or two left in that pattern.

Anyone else sewing for a tweenage boy? Any favourite patterns out there?

5 comments:

  1. These look great. Though I love to sew jeans for myself, I admit I'd rather buy for my children. I do have to start making jeans for my oldest daughter though, since RTW never fits her. I have exactly one Ottobre magazine but it does have a jeans pattern in it. Sometime this year ...

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  2. These are fantastic, and thank you for reminding me of this issue of Ottobre! I have it in my piles, but as my kids get older I sometimes forget to go back and look at the larger kid patterns in those early issues. This one has tons of patterns I'd love to look at again for both my kids. And yeah, Ottobre is pretty much the only game out there for tweens, but the thing is, it's a PRETTY GREAT GAME. You could absolutely clothe your kids on Ottobres alone.

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  3. Ah jeans...I'm so intimidated by them. Maybe by the time we move to a country where you can actually wear jeans in comfort, I'll have worked up the courage to make them. And then I'll check your blog for all the tricks and tips!

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  4. Fantastic looking jeans and that back pocket details is very interesting.

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  5. Madebyoranges just put out a children’s magazine with 7 boys patterns in it. Much better than usual, and I’m hoping their summer issue also has a lot of boys options. I quite like the way they fit, although their instructions aren’t as hand-holdy as Oliver and S. (Oliver and S, in fairness, have got unusually good instructions!) Their sizing goes till 13, I think.

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