Thursday, 19 September 2013

Making something Old, New(er)

Hi!  The electricity was out this morning, so I had to do some actual work outside, instead of inside on the computer!  Just as well, as my project this week is outside. :-)

So, what old project do I have to share this week?  It's skinny jeans!! Except it's not that old, as I just did them last week!

Here are a few links I found to help me:




Then after I made them, I found another sewing site, with a skinny jean tutorial and a bunch of other cool sewing projects.  Here's the link to the skinny jeans:

First, these jeans are about a size and 1/2 too big.  If sizes are only even numbers, does that mean each even number is a whole size or a 1/2 size? I'm in between even numbers, and these jeans are one whole even number above the size I'd actually buy if I was buying them new and I wanted to get a slightly bigger fit instead of a super tight fit.  Anyway, these came from a second hand shop in Charlottetown that was moving and had a "Buy a Bag of Clothes for some amount of money" sale.  I bought these and another pair of jeans and some other clothes I've since gotten rid of.   The reason I'm telling you this is because I also tried to skinny up the waist, but it didn't work.  I thought I could just gather up some extra and sew a seam into the back pocket, but then the pocket gaped open.  So, they are still big in the waist, but skinny in the legs.  This lets you know I don't really know what I'm doing!

Sew, (ha ha!) on to the project. Here's how my jeans looked after I'd sewn one leg skinnier.  I put the jeans on inside out then pinned and sorta drew a line where I wanted to sew. I sewed a straight stitch on the outside because the inside seam was the more fancy one.  Not sure if this is a good idea or not.  

Here's how they look on me.  From the front:
 From the side with the skinny leg closest to the mirror:
 And the other side.  You can see I took it in quite a bit.

 Once I was happy with the fit, I zig-zagged a seam beside the straight stitch seam and acutally cut off the extra!  Oh, there's no turning back now! Next, I flipped the skinny leg over the big leg and used it as a guide to draw a line so I could sew it.  First a straight stitch, then a zig-zag, then cut off the extra. 

Here's the final product:


I like them, but it took a few times to get it right.   First, I sewed from the top and my seams didn't line up at the bottom. So, I had to re-do it.  Then I accidently poked a little hole in the side when I was removing the stitching I'd done!  Oops!  And there is still a bit of a funny part at the top where my new seam joins the old.  I tried a few times to get it right, but I figured I'd just wear a long top or something to hide it.  Also, the second leg I sewed is a bit smaller than the first, so it's a bit tighter.  Not too tight, but a bit noticeable to the wearer (me!).  And with the too big waist, they're a bit funny to wear.   I wore them on Tuesday while running errands and I kept having to pull them up.  They're a bit high waisted so I don't really like to wear a belt with them. Perhaps I should look into tightening up the waist again...

So, there's my little project.  It's fun to re-do clothes!  I never thought I'd be a sewer, but I'm working on it!   :-)

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