Turn a pair of jeans into a skirt

 A successful sewing project? From ME?

YEAH!!!!!!!!!

 Perfect? No. It's better than perfect. It's done. ☺

A friend of mine (hi, Korina!) makes these and we've been wanting to get together for a little tutorial sewing session but... pregnancy (hers, not mine), kiddos, sickness, trips, LIFE seems to be keeping us from being able to do that. I had the materials (no cost!) so I thought why not try it on my own. So I did.

And I think I like it! Maddie really likes it. Woo-hoo!

I'll let you in a funny little secret though: the pink insert you see there... it's the legs of my old PJ pants. Cute ruffle action, huh? The waistband on these pants were stretched beyond usefulness, which is what happens when one wears non-maternity PJ pants through 3 pregnancies. Or just keeps any PJ pants for that long. But snip snip snip and viola: jean skirt insert. My friend had let me know that I should use a material for the insert that had a bit of stretch to it, so this was perfect-o!

I'm sure there are very helpful online tutorials or videos. Just a basic run down of what I did:

Ripped the inseam out. Continued ripping out the seam to the belt loop in back, and the zipper on front.

With the skirt/jeans inside out, sew the back together first, using a ruler to make a semi straight line from the waistband to the existing hem. This leaves excess material where the crotch was formally; this gets cut off after sewing. I then put a zip zag stitch along the inside of this seam to help make it more sturdy as my little tom boy plays. I will admit to you that this step had to be ripped out and redone, as this was an experiment. I've since done another pair with an elastic waistband and no back pocket and it was very very easy. This pictured skirt needed a little bit of tinkering to get the pockets to look normal and to have a gradual, A-line shape but the end product looks fine to my unprofessional, non perfectionist eyes.

With skirt turned right side out, sew the pink material into the upside down V. The front of the skirt had  retained a hemmed appearance along the upside down V (though the hem was ripped out, the fold was still there). I placed my pink material inside where it looked good to me. I pinned the two bottom hems together first, then worked my way up the V. Then I used a zip zag stitch and put 'er together.

Maybe it looks totally dorky to some people. I think it's rather cute, and Maddie is a big fan! ☺ Since the jeans were hand me downs, and the pink material was salvage, it was FREE. ☺☺That gets TWO smiley faces!


Love,