Ginger Jeans: Back Pocket Design Inspiration

If you follow me on instagram, you know I've finally cracked into that Cone Mills denim and embarked on the famous Ginger Jeans journey. Whoo-hoo! 

Making a particular wardrobe item causes you to look pretty deeply at the design choices and details. There are lots of those on jeans that we just take for granted-- one of the big ones is the back pocket. The pattern suggests very early in the process that you might want to add a design to the back pocket, but beyond interfacing, the choices are left up to you. That's always a both exciting and overwhelming for me!

Faced with a blank pocket, I decided to do a quick internet survey and share the results with you. A special thanks to the Jeans Pocket Project Wiki for pulling together so many great images, lots of these come from their collection.

First up, the most elaborate! 

Top Row, left to right: unidentified; Siwy;
Bottom Row: People 4 Peace; Chip N Pepper; unidentified

There are some VERY elaborate back pockets out there... think rhinestones, studs, chains, and zippers! The ones I have here are relatively tame, but they all seemed to be well balanced and very wearable. I love the black on black roses, but that won't be happening without an embroidery machine. The multiple colors of topstitching thread is a nice idea, and I also like the use of denim-on-denim applique. The bits of leather on the Siwy pocket are beautiful, I have to remember that for the future. I'm in love with the last design, it is both contemporary and organic. It would be time consuming to replicate, but very doable.

Paper Denim and Cloth; Urban Ring; Designs by Bellabug, made for her daughter
unidentified; Paige Premium Tidal Pocket, Page Premium Tidal Pocket

The basic curve, and variations. These designs are all classic, feminine and timeless. The simplicity of the top left is lovely... a simple well-placed line is a great detail. At the more elaborate end of things, the appliquéd wave design is really lovely.

1921; Earnest Sewn; Acne; Bluejeanious
Stronghold; Yanuk; Loomstate; Calvin Klein

There are quite a few designs that incorporate a decorative outline of the pocket. Very simple, doable, and effective. I love the handstitch detail of the 1921, the curves of the Earnest Sewn Pocket, and the multiple colors used by several of the designs. My favorite is the subtle asymmetry of the Calvin Klein pocket.

Armani Exchange; Diesel; Mavi; Abercrombie
Jake Agave; Moussy; Ralph Lauren; Levi Strauss

And, of course, there are innumerable variants of the horizontal squiggle. Perhaps the most famous is the last-- the iconic Levis pocket design, over which they have sued their competitors. It seems like the big names in RTW jeans are crowded into this category... imitation is the best flattery, non?

After looking at all of these designs, I decided to stick with something simple for my first pair of jeans. The second grouping of images above, showing simple curve designs, is my inspiration. I also think this would be quite reasonable on my standard, no-frills sewing machine: no 360 degree turns or fancy stitches please! I traced my pocket pattern piece several times onto a sheet of tracing paper, and drew in the seam allowances. To further add some design boundaries, I cut out a pleasing curve on a piece of cardboard and used that as a template, drawing three or four lines.

In the top row, I tried having those lines intersect in different ways. On the bottom row, I took one design and experimented with subtle variations of where the lines intersect the edges of the pocket. These sketches could be more drawn with more care, but I was doing this late at night, and I didn't want to use up too much of my precious sewing time!

The possibilities are endless! But I am gravitating towards the lower left. What do you think?

Path Lighting- Before and After

Before...

After!!

The view up the path... it's really hard to see in picture. It's not usually quite this dark... depends on how well adjusted your eyes are the the darkness.

And here it is with the lights... it's really pretty, and much less of a guessing game to find the steps.

A Forest in the Bedroom

This was my first ever stencil project, but it worked out beautifully. It sort of looks like wallpaper... but I can't afford the wallpapers I love, and I cringe a little at the thought of taking it down again when I get tired of it. It just seemed a lot simpler to paint what I wanted.

This Ansel Adams print of aspens has stuck in my mind since the first time I saw it. I think it would be incredibly calming to wake up to a forest every morning.

This is a doodle I did in my sketchpad during a long, drawn-out faculty meeting.

There are a couple readymade stencils out there. This is one by Cutting Edge Stencils has a bit too much detail for my taste... and it is only 48 inches high, so I was afraid there would be an obvious line in the middle of my wall. And, I wanted to paint the negative spaces between the trees, not the trees themselves. The Stencil Library has one that is larger and paints the negative spaces, but once again, it is too busy, I wanted a simpler design. And, the wall size size stencil... which is enormous... is 140 euros.

I decided to make my own. I found this plastic posterboard at the local craft store, and it is just the perfect material for making a stencil. Blank stencils only came in a tiny 10x10 sheet, but the plastic posterboard is 22x28 inches. I taped a couple sheets together with packing tape to make a 44x28 inch sheet.

I drew with a dry erase marker, so that I could just rub away a line and redraw it. I drew the lines freehand, without a ruler, so that they would have an organic character.

I cut out the space between the trees with a small boxcutter knife.

So there are my supplies... a 4 inch foam roller, a regular paint tray, paint stirrer and an opener for the paint can.

I decided to use Sherwin Williams Translucent Metallic Technique Finish. They're actually discontinuing this paint, so I got it on clearance for $5!! But they say they have a replacement metallic paint, so if they are out of this one they can probably still help you out. Lowes also carries a metallic paint, but they wouldn't give me a sample, and there is all this oddness about the fact that their metallics need to be paired with other colors... so I decided to pass on $20 for a little can that I wasn't sure would work.

Since this is the first time I've ever stenciled, I decided to try it out on a piece of brown craft paper.

When you're stenciling with a foam roller, you want to load it up so that the entire roller gets an even coating, then squeeze most of the paint out of the roller by rolling it back and forth along the ridges of the paint tray. You roller should be almost dry.

Peel the stencil away, and there it is! Perfect!

I'm glad I did a test, because I ended up changing a few things. My initial idea was to stencil the bottom of the wall, then the top. But I decided there was no way that was going to look seamless. So I made my stencil twice as large. I used 4 sheets of plastic posterboard, and my finished stencil was 88 inches tall and 28 inches wide. The wall is actually about 102 inches high.

But it actually worked out that the stencil was smaller than the wall for two reasons. First, there was a radiator in the way along part of the wall. And more importantly, the extra room at the top of the wall gave me space to use lots of painters tape to hold the stencil in place. I had planned to use Scotch Repositionable Adhesive, but my stencil was just to large and heavy for that to work. Instead, I used lots of painter's tape, and the tape actually became extensions of the trees at the top and bottom of the stencil. Sometimes I even made an extra branch with tape.

BTW, I painted the wall a few days ago with two coats of Behr Premium Plus Ultra, in a gray-blue color ("Windsurf"), in Eggshell finish.

Here is the finished wall. I even went over the doorframe.

Okay, so it is a little frivolous to stencil a closet... but isn't it romantic to have a forest behind your clothes? It reminds me of the C.S. Lewis's wardobe that lead to Narnia. And I was on a roll, it only took another 45 minutes to complete.