New life for old jeans!

Okay friends, if you can sew a straight stitch, you can do this! If you can't sew a straight stitch, find a friend who can, and do this together! I have always thought this was a great idea, but I'd never tried it... until now that is! So, grab an old pair of jeans, khakis ... pretty much any pair of pants. I chose to make my youngest little girl a denim skirt. She has worn the knees out of several pair of jeans, but the waist still fits, so this seemed like the perfect solution. I'll take you step by step so you can make this too.

Step 1- select your pants to start .

 

                                                 Step 2- fold them to the side, leg on top of leg so they are even and you can cut the lower part of the leg off. Be sure to leave a little extra for the hem- so if you want a knee length skirt, cut it about an inch below the knee.

 Step 3- cut the lower leg off. It obviously works best if you are making a skirt that is a length short enough to use the lower leg as the middle of the skirt.

 Step 4- cut the inseam of the pants to open them up. It works best to leave the thick hem to the front so the finished product looks more "store bought" and not so home made... you know if you care about that.... like I do! (does anyone else suddenly hear the lyrics to "you're so vain" running through your head... No? It's just me.... ok.)

 Step 5- open the seam of the leg - again it looks better if you cut the small seam and leave the thick one intact.

Step 6-   Iron all pieces so they are wrinkle free and lay nice and flat.

 Step 7- pin the pieces together for the FRONT of the skirt. You want to pin the leg portion to the body of the skirt. You can pin it with the hem that was the ankle hanging a little lower than the other hems, or you can match it up exactly. I left the ankle hem a little lower so I didn't have to sew through that thick seam. I planned to cut that part off in the end anyway, so it worked great.

 Step 8- trim the extra from the BACK seam. You will notice there is a bit too much fabric at the back because of what was the allowance for the bum.. you don't need that. So, trim a little triangle of the fabric off to allow the back of the skirt to lay flat.  Now pin the other opened up leg to the back of the skirt.

Step  9 -     Now just sew it all up. You should be able to run a straight stitch up the seams in the front and back. Depending on what you decided to do with the front hem, you will need to trim it evenly all around the bottom. I wanted a raw edge on this skirt, so I chose to hem about 1/2 inch up from the edge and let if fray in the wash. I did cut the thick seam off from the leg pieces so that it was just a raw edge all the way around. Your skirt should look something like this at this point in the process.

Step 10- hem the edge. You can have a finished edge by ironing the raw edge under and hemming it that way, or you can leave the raw edge and sew about a half inch above it to leave a fray. That's what I did.

See the hem that I sewed there and then the raw edge.

Mission COMPLETE!!!- okay it's as easy as that! .... but if you want to get a little fancy here is what you can do.... Pick a fabric to add ruffles. You need evenly cut strips of fabric- any fabric you like will work. Cut strips that will be the length of one and a half times around the skirt.

Fold and iron each strip in half long ways. This will become your ruffle. You can just eyeball it and ruffle the strip as you sew it on, or you can run a loose basting stitch along the raw edge and then pull the thread to ruffle the fabric so it will fit all the way around the skirt.

Sew the ruffles to the bottom hem of the skirt starting with the lowest one and moving up to the top ruffle. I also had an old crocheted table cloth- so I cut some of the different sized medallions out and sewed them on too.

This is the "fancy" skirt!

You can basically add anything you want once you have the body of the skirt completed. So, be original- think of something you love and sew it on! My own skirt is going to have a bird on the side in a bright fabric- I'll post pics when I get it finished.