A chronological diversion...

Before I get to the BIG project I'm working on right now, I thought I'd show y'all what I made last night. I bought a pair of jeans a while ago that fit perfectly in the store but then grew a ton width ways during wearing and as a double whammy shrunk by an inch or so in length after washing. How rude.

The jeans lay folded at the bottom of the drawer in time out, only ever shown the light of day when I was too lazy to do laundry. And then one fateful day, I tore my favourite denim skirt*. EGADS! I began thinking that instead of just giving those naughty jeans to goodwill I should refashion them into something useful...

I googled around and found this tutorial which seemed simple enough, dug out a heavy weight needle for my machine, braced myself.... and chopped up the jeans. I am so proud of myself that I stood on the table and took a picture. Not even a good picture, I couldn't wait for daylight.

I modified the tutorial to be a two panel skirt and then had to fudge a bunch to make it work. Being of the short-arsed persuasion my jeans were not quite long enough to make a skirt the length I wanted. This wasn't a problem on the front where the zipper leads to a shorter insert panel, but I had to get a bit more "creative" on the back.

I kind of like the decorative element the original seams lend to the whole look and the completely accidental tulip shape made by the curvy fit of the original jeans. The bottom hem is far from perfect but on the whole I'm very proud of myself, in fact I'm wearing the skirt right now. I'm pretty sure this is going to be a wardrobe staple this summer and I'm already planning my attack on a pair of wool trousers I ruined in the wash....

* The skirt tore along the seam of the front where the skirt splits. I repaired the tear using a bit of scrap denim from this project and a zigzag stitch in a matching yarn to basically darn it back together. I added back the original yellow hem over the darned patch and if you squint a little you can hardly tell it was ever torn.