After sewing several jeans for my boyfriend, it was time to sew one for myself! I wanted high-waisted jeans with a flare cut and I fell for the Philippine jeans by Coralie Bijasson. 

I tell you about my sewing adventure. 

The model

Philippine is the pattern for pants or shorts with a high waist and a jeans yoke on the back. It has patch pockets on the back and front and "flare" legs for the pants. Everything I wanted for my sewing project! 

The height planned for the pattern is about 165 cm. 

The pattern (sold in the shop) comes with an explanatory booklet with all the assembly steps. A video is also available. Each step is explained with a diagram and a description.

In the seamstress's basket

To make your Philippine jeans pants you will need:

• Fabric 140 cm wide: from 2m (size 34 to 40) to 2.2m (size 42 to 48). 
• A zipper for pants between 11 and 16 cm. 
• A button or a jeans button 
• some fusible interfacing for the waistband: 15 cm x 110 cm
• some good matching thread or contrasting for the more adventurous
• rivets if you want some 
• don't forget a good machine needle suitable for your fabric (denim for example)

For the short version, count on 110cm of fabric. 

Prefer materials with a bit of elastane like denim, we have brought in some with trendy cool colors like moss green, garnet, rust, pink, or even aqua green but also the traditional black, blue jeans, and indigo... 

You can also opt for corduroy which will give a slightly retro touch to this model. 

The technical points

The Philippine pants/jeans, like all pants, have quite a few technical points to their credit. In fact, the pants are classified as difficult level. 

The technical points are:

• the front and back patch pockets
• installing the fly (directly)
• attaching rivets (if desired)
• sewing with triple stitch and making well-parallel topstitching
• creating and attaching the belt loops
• assembling the waistband
• making the buttonhole and attaching the button
• hemming the seams. 

Nothing is insurmountable but you will need a bit of patience and precision especially for creating the topstitching. 

The sewing experience

I chose to sew size 36 and reduce the waist by 1.5cm so that the pants fit my measurements well. 

I opted for a coupon of jeans that I had brought back from a trip to Spain before remaking this model in a "joly" denim from the shop’s collection. This Spanish denim has quite a bit of stretch but with a good jeans needle and patience... the topstitching went well!

As for the front pockets, no problems with the installation. I chose to topstitch them with saddle stitch which gives a nice effect. For the back pockets, I think I will enlarge them just a little bit for my next version. I chose to decorate them with a decorative stitch, which adds a bit of whimsy to the model. 

For the fly, I did not follow the assembly steps in the manual because I have my usual technique that allows me to make them easily without hassle. I opted for a 12cm metal-toothed zipper for the jeans effect. 

I made topstitched belt loops that I chose to stitch directly on the top of the pants before attaching the waistband. I like this finish which helps to firmly secure the belt loops to the pants. 

Don’t forget to properly interface the waistband to give it rigidity before assembly. 

The installation of the buttonhole and the jeans button went well. I always use my pliers for placing the jeans buttons and rivets which greatly facilitates the application, I find. 

I am very happy to have finally made jeans for myself. 

I have taken note of the pattern modifications to make for my version two and I am delighted to have been able to test the Philippine pattern by Coralie Bijasson. I really enjoyed this sewing experience and I feel like I will make some more models from this brand but I won’t tell you more for now ;-) 

So, get your needles ready!