recycled jeans skirt

I've had a lot of really fun things going on lately - I've won great prizes from other blogs, have had my old roommate come to the city for a visit, I have even attended an accordion festival. I have also made some useful crafts. Since this is a craft blog, I'll start with my jean skirt, and hopefully get to the other stuff later this week. Summer seems to be a hard blogging time for me - not enough time to do all the great things New York has to offer, and certainly not enough time to write about it.

Anyway, on to the skirt. As I said before, my old college roomie and long time best bud came to town and frequently wore an adorable jean skirt, which made me want one of my own. I wish I would have had the patience and foresight to turn it into a tutorial, but I got so excited that I dove right into the project, unfortunately without pulling out my camera. Basically, here's what I did:

1) I started with a pair of great fitting jeans that I no longer wear (my flared leg days have passed).

2) Using a seam ripper, take out the inseam stitching of both legs up to about an inch below the zipper in front and about the same amount up the backside. I didn't cut the fabric, because I wanted to keep the nice front seams intact.

3) Cut the legs off to the desired skirt length - keep the leg bottoms to use later.

4) Overlap the fabric on the front side to the desired skirt width, making sure the fabric lays down flat and pin. There will be a large triangle opening at the bottom where the fabric doesn't meet.

5) Fit a piece of the leftover leg fabric in the opening and pin. I tried it on at this point to see how the denim hung, and readjusted until the fit was right.

6) Sew the panel in and cut off the excess fabric



7) Repeat steps 4-6 on the back. Since you do not have the nice seams on the backside, I ironed the edges flat and sewed three times (spaced evenly) along the panel for a bit of decoration. Then I frayed the edge of the denim.

8) Ta-da! Brand new skirt. The next day at church, you and your husband/friend/significant other pull at the frayed bottom edge of the skirt, making it look even more awesome. :)


Whew - longest post ever. For a more coherent tutorial (with step-by-step photos) go to not martha.

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