Jeans Technicos/Techniques - Flat-Felled Seams Fall Flat, when it comes to Sewing Denim

In my last post, Summer of Jeans Sewing, I described my plan for learning to sew and fit jeans. I began by working on my flat-felled seam techniques.

How hard could that be? I've sewn these seams in light weight cotton a few times.
Hummmm, guess who needs to keep working on her flat-felled denim sample sewing? 

I started out with a review of flat-felled seams, In which Russell Conte of Sewing Arts Center shows us how to complete a Flat Felled Seam to give your garments a fresh clean professional look.
Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klyJYE4OcM0''


Another Resource to study http://oliverands.com/blog/2011/01/flat-felled-seams.html

Frankly, I figured i'd spend longer listening to Russell's well-done youtube video than I would sewing my first sample.

Har de har har!

~ ~ ~

Entonces, I got out my bits and pieces and got the sewing going.

Whoops! You sew WRONG Sides together when sewing a flat-felled seam.
Time for a visit with Auntie Seamah Rippah.

That's right
Wrong Sides together, and ready to seam

Remember to use
Jeans Needles

Seam
Press to embed stitches on both sides of sewn seam
Butterfly open and press on both sides

Study worn-out Ready to Wear Jeans
Oh, I see I want the topstitching on the back edge
Actually - in my sample below - I did it the other way with the
topstiching on the front edge.
But that was the least of my challenges

I'm going to trim away here,
As close to the seam as I can get
But just on one side

Deciding that I wanted to have topstitching
on the right of the Front seam - opposite of the Ready to Wear pair above!-,
 I trimmed the front
Seam Allowance, so that the Back Seam Allowance
Would wrap around, over, and encase the front
which would mean I'd topstitch on the front Seam Allowance edge

Here, I folded the back seam allowance
over and around the front

Then glued it down so the seam wouldn't move
while I topstitched

How close to the seam allowance did the
Ready to Wear folks do their topstitching?
An eighth of an inch.
No - it didn't occur to me until I made my graph paper model (below)
that they probably didn't sew a 5/8 inch seam allowance like I did!

OK, that means I sew here

I'll position my left presser foot toe on top of the
seam, to keep my line of topstitching straight

Hope this orange topstiching thread is the right stuff
It's Gutterman, heavy weight topstitching, but it doesn't
specifically say it's for jeans....

Hummmm No matter what I did when I started (and re-started)
The fabric didn't move well when I began sewing
But, as you see on the scrap piece, it sews fine on a single layer
And I've sewn this same fabric into shorts, so I know it should sew up
Is it the glue?

Uh oh.... That eighth of an inch topstitching ddn't really catch the seam

I added a second line of topstitching to fell the rest of the seam
And golly, my topstitching wasn't straight, though I thought I was
watching the presser foot toe carefully on both stitching passes

Time to get out the graph paper and think this thing through!

Gee, it sure sounded easy before I actually tried it!