A few weeks ago I got a massive burst of inspiration and decided to make a long denim skirt out of a pair of jeans. The jeans in question were size 16 jeans from my larger days early last year. Not only that they were going at the seams between the legs so they must have been a little tight on me at one point or another… If you are thinking of going on a diet, just give up sugar!  10 months of no sugar and I am two stone lighter and a size 10 – trust me it is one of the best decisions you will ever make.

Anyway, so the jeans were no good as they were a) too big and b) going at the inner leg seams, plus there was a hole in them.

1. I decided mending them wouldn’t be practical or useful to me, so instead I got scissor happy and started chopping them up.  I chopped them down both the inner and outer leg seams. Once I had chopped them up I realised that actually I needed another pair of jeans to complete the bottom part of the skirt and chopped up the other pair of size 16 jeans that I had that was also going at the seams. I left the top part of the jeans including the zip and just chopped off the legs. Then I cut the legs of the second pair of jeans down both the inner and outer seams.

2, 3 &4.I then laid a size 10 skirt that I already had in my wardrobe over the first pair of jeans and drew the outline of it in chalk (and continued the chalk line to the bottom of the legs). I then cut down the legs of the jeans down the chalk lines (after pinning them in place to make sure the legs didn’t move while I was cutting them) to make them thinner to match the skirt (with a little leeway for sewing them together).

5. I laid the cut up jeans down wrong way up and pinned the extra legs into the gap in the middle.  I then cut the excess fabric off the central parts to shape them.

6. I laid the two sides of the ‘skirt’ back to back and pinned the sides together.  I zigzagged and straight stitched the sides together.  I used the zigzag stitch as it helps to stop the edges from fraying and will make the skirt last longer.  I then tried on the skirt and realised I had made the central panels too wide, so made them smaller.

Since having my burst of inspiration I haven’t had a chance to finish the skirt (it all ground to a halt when I broke the needle on my sewing machine and found it seemed to be stuck in the machine – not ideal!).  When I get a chance I will fix the sewing machine, finish the skirt and blog about it! Plus I have an idea of what to do with the leftover pieces of the jeans…

I am currently undertaking a Year of Eco Challenges . If you have a moment I would really appreciate it if you would consider sponsoring me with an action on my DoNation page. Also if you liked this post please click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks so much!