For my first sewing project using a pattern, I’ve decided to go with a Jalie underwear pattern. My thinking was along these lines:

• If I screw up, it’s not a huge waste of time, thread, or fabric,
• I’d recently salvaged a bunch of material from some t-shirts, and
• If I don’t like the result, but want to test the construction quality with actual wear, no one has to see it.

I don’t have a serger, so I’m doing overcasting with a zigzag pattern. That part turned out well, but the straight stitch didn’t turn out quite how I hoped. The material is 100% polyester knit, which is a little troublesome with my machine’s feed dogs.

Of course, after making this pair I’m starting to reverse engineer the design of my existing underwear. I’ll be honest, this is the most critically I’ve ever looked at the construction of underwear (any garment, really). It feels like a superpower now to be able to mentally walk through the construction of a factory-made pair and pick out certain design decisions. For example, this pair of Jockeys where multiple pieces for the pouch are sewn wrong-side-in so that the stitching is invisible.

I think for my next pair, I’ll modify the pattern to get the same pouch construction as the Jockeys. However, I’m already on to my next project, so that idea is going to need to wait.