Saturday, January 01, 2011

Tutorial : Jeans to a skirt

I was given a pair of high waisted 'mom' jeans. And even though i AM a mum these are hideous and i would never in a million years wear them. I did try them on and the waist was up near my boobs. So ya. Hideous. SO i decided to make them into a skirt. Why waste good demin, right?
So here's the jeans - a lovely 15 inches from crotch to waist

The first thing you wanna do is cut them off at the top. I measured my hips and then found the spot on the jeans that would go around my hips. Cut through the zip or if you want to keep it - unpick it. I hate unpicking so i just cut right through it and then cut the zip out of the part that was staying on my skirt.
Measure from the top down to how long you want your skirt. Mine is 21 inches. And cut it off on both legs.
You should have something like this -
Next cut up the seams on the inside legs. don't unpick them, just cut neatly.
Next cut about 2.5-3 inches up the crotch. Neatly, like so -
It will look like this once it's folded over. It needs to sit flat because there is nothing you want LESS then a buldge in the front of your skirt. lol If it's a little knobbly at the end just cut the excess fabric away. Sew it down. I used black thread sewn closely to the existing thread and you can't even see it.
Flip it over and do the back. And because the back used to be for your bum there will be extra fabric. So unless you want to look like you have a tail - cut it off
I cut mine on both flaps. Just make sure it sits nice and flat like the front. Sew it down.
Next -With the cut off legs of the jeans you need to make a triangle shape to fill in the gap. Front and back.
Sewn on the front will look like this - so go ahead and pin and sew both triangles on. Now try it on. If it's too big you can just pull in the sides a bit by sewing down both sides equally. I had to to that.
Now for the waist. Grab and old t-shirt and cut about 7 inches off the bottom. Measure around your waist about an inch below your belly button. Take that measurement and subtract off 1-2 inches. Join the seams at the end.
double it over and pin it to your skirt. Since you are pinning on stretchy material, pin the front, back and sides first and then stretch the rest of the fabric around. Sew.


You should get something looking like this!! Now you can hem the bottom but i'm going for the casual look so i'm leaving it unhemmed so it will fray.

And this is the end result!! No more Harold High Pants.
Happy Sewing!!!

4 comments:

Chrissii said...

And the skirt looked great on!I loved the frayed edges, not too much but just enough.

Deanna said...

You are brilliant, and that tutorial is GREAT!

Kendra said...

Why must you be so dang crafty?! Good job.

Sell Timeshare said...

This one is nice.
Thanks for sharing this.
I can't wait to make also like that skirt.
I like it.

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