Aren't I Clever?

I love wearing skirts in the summer. And I don't mean fussy, girly skirts although I have some of those too. I also like grungy, comfortable skirts that I don't worry how dirty they get and the more wrinkled they get, the better. When I cleaned out my closet a few weeks ago I looked at a pair of stained, torn jeans that had seriously seen their better days and decided to recycle. I had no pattern, no experience and no plan.

Beat up jeans went from this::

to this::

– using only a seam ripper, a pair of scissors, an old pair of shorts, my sewing machine and a little bit of imagination!

I cut off the legs around knee length and carefully picked out the seams up the inside of the legs. On the front, I ripped the seam up to the bottom of the zipper and on the back I went all the way up to the yoke. Smoothing out the pieces that were left, it easily went into an A-line "skirt shape" with lots of overlapping material. I then carefully re-sewed using the old, clearly visible seam lines.

In trying it on, I realized that there were some serious coverage issues in the front that needed to be addressed if I didn't want to be arrested. Thinking it over I first thought I would use the leftover legs to fill the gap. But I wanted more color. So I cut up an old pair of madras, patchwork shorts that had seen better days and used that instead!

A quick zip with the machine around the bottom of the skirt lets it fray just a little without raveling out of control and it was done. Less than an hour and I had myself a new skirt!

And yeah. . .I think I'm pretty clever!