Sew, For My Next Trick…

I turned a pair of jeans into a skirt.

I got the idea from an episode of Emergency! because the 70’s call to me like that. One of the actresses was wearing a jean skirt like that and I thought, “Hey! What a great idea!”

And then I didn’t do anything about it for a while because I wasn’t sure I was capable of turning a pair of jeans into a skirt with my self-taught hand-sewing skills. When I get ideas for projects, be they sewing or writing, I have to meditate on them a while to see if I can get them to work out. Boosted by my work on turning t-shirts into bags (I’ve got five of them now), I thought with a little research it might be possible.

I did some Googling on the subject of turning a pair of jeans into a skirt, looking to the wisdom of those that had walked this path before me and got the general idea of what I needed to do to make this work.

Then I talked myself into committing to this project.

It’s not like turning the t-shirts I was never going to wear again into bags; I only have so many pairs of jeans and really can’t afford to waste a pair, even if I hate them. Society demands that I keep my ass covered. So I had to be sure that I could make this work.

I’m happy I talked myself into it.

I used a pair of my fat-girl jeans (they’ve got a bit of spandex in them) that lost their shape after wearing them a few times. The legs were too big and rather unflattering. But, that excess material proved to be perfect for the skirt transformation. I used one kerchief for the front panel, cutting it and sewing it together so it would fit just right. I thought that would be the hardest part, but it turned out to be pretty easy.

In most of the skirts I’ve seen, there’s also a back panel, usually smaller, but since the legs of these jeans were so big, I didn’t need to put one in. Just sewed it up the back and added some slits to the side to show a little leg.

It took me several hours over four days to get the whole thing done.

It’s another ego boost to my sewing skills. And another lesson that I am quite capable of getting shit done if I put some time, effort, and patience into the pot.