Re-purposed Jeans...

We buy so many things on instinct. Sometimes we realize later that we really did not like what we bought but then we simply cannot return it for some reason. What to do? Charity, Bin or make it likable? I chose the third one and my son took it to an all new level.

Once I went to a store where most of the items were on sale - I don't mean half price sale....I mean a much much greater envious sale. In those racks of sale items, I found this branded pair of jeans at a cost I never expected. I am not an instinctive buyer, but I couldn't resist this one. So I bought it without reading the full label - SALE ITEM NON-RETURNABLE. At home, I realized it was bootleg, something which I did not like much. I still tried to wear it, but nothing made me happier, not even the price I had paid for it. How could I possibly throw such a good quality item? I had to do something.

That is when the summer season came to my rescue. An idea struck me and I came home and cut the legs to make them short and viola! I had a new pair of jeans which was so comfortable and looked so nice. I only had to stitch the edge to seal off the threads, but I thought of another idea and instead of the regular stitch, I used croshay. It gave a new designer look to my jeans.

When my son came home from school, I showed him my work as I always do. He was delighted but was more interested in the cut out cloth pieces. He asked me if he could use them, which I gladly agreed to. After all what use would I put those discarded pieces to?

He took them and went away to his room saying "Private Time." It simply means I am not allowed into his room! He came out after a long time with the cloth in his hand but now it was not a mere piece of cloth, it had turned into a pouch, a pouch with pockets.It did miss the handle though. But it was a beautiful idea. I was amazed. I keep telling him all the time "Son you are more creative than me." But he never agrees.

Well since this was done about two years ago, I only have the finished product. So I have taken help of some image editing to show how it was done.

Step 1:

After the piece was separated from the main cloth, it was stitched inside out on the line shown below. This side was chosen because the end of the jeans always has a fine finished hem. So a lot of work is reduced and it also looks neater.

Step 2:

One leg piece was used as the main piece. The other piece was cut into a square shape and sewn on to the inside of the bag as shown below in blue line. This made two compartments in the bag. Being an 8 year old, my son had done his best to make the stitches as neat as possible.

Step 3:

Now turning the bag inside out, He stitched a small pocket on the outside. Here again he used the hem of the jeans to save labor. He took my advice on this since he did not know how to hide the ugly edges from peeking out. I also helped him in stitching since it was too thick to poke the needle in at some places. I later added some embroidery to make it look more attractive.

Step 4:

His part was finished. Now it was my turn to add one long handle and something to close its mouth. I looked for spare zips but did not find any suitable one. I added one temporary handle and started using it because I couldn't wait to show off to my friends! I took the bag to India where my Dad found a suitable zip and attached to it on his sewing machine. I am not so good at that.

Step 5:

I found a satin ribbon and some white thick flat string at home. I thought of making the bag handle with it but was struggling to make a good design. The red zip on the bag matched with the red satin ribbon. So I wanted that to be used.Here again my son did a wonderful job. He started winding the red ribbon around  the white string with in an infinite loop fashion. My bag handle was taking a beautiful shape. It looked lovely. More beautiful than I could imagine. 

Step 6:

I simply attached the ends of my new handle to the bag to complete it.

Now I have a matching bag for my jeans.And it looks awesome.

Key Holder

What would you do if your wooden towel stand came apart and all you are left with are the two end parts of the stand? Well when I faced this question, I just kept them in a corner for few days. They then started troubling me because my young son would play with them and throw them here and there. So I just hung them on the wall. They stayed there for a few more days.In the meantime, I had problems keeping my keys and every time I saw this frame hung on the wall, I thought, how can I use this.

One end of the stand.

One day I took the frame down and sat staring at it for a long time. I felt that the wood was soft, soft enough to press pins into it by hand.So I took some drawing pins and pushed them in on the inner side of the frame. It went in quite easily. Then I took the box of pins and started pushing one pin after the other into the soft wood. Seriously I did not count them, I just tried to keep a constant distance between them. This is the problem with me! I work on instincts. Some were quite difficult to push, but ultimately I had completed and it did look beautiful.

The next part was the most difficult. I had to pull the thread through these pins without getting the pins out. Not too tight and not too loose. Also the string did not stay in place many times.

The pattern I used to make design:

 I counted the pins into two sections and found the mid point. Then tied knot on the first pin, pulled the string all the way around the middle pin and back to the pin next to the first. Then to the second pin on to the right of the middle pin and back to the third pin from where I began and so on till I reached the last pin. At the end I saw a beautiful pattern. 

Make sure the thread is securely in place and does not slip out of the pin. The tension on the strings should be equal everywhere otherwise the pattern will not look good.

I used the same technique for the bottom part with six on each side and eleven pins the bottom line.

At last when all was done, I fixed some store bought hooks to the frame to hang the keys.

I loved the end result. Nobody could say it was home made.

Kitchen apron from old dress

Hello there,

My newest creation - A kitchen apron from my old dress.

I needed a kitchen apron and definitely did not intend to buy one from the stores. Every time I held one in my hand and saw the price on it, I would think - why should I shell out so much for this small piece of cloth? When I was clearing out my cupboard, I found this dress which had yellow stains on sleeves and front. It was as good as not usable. So this is what I converted it into...

 

From this...                                                                       ......To this

The first thing I did was to cut off the collar, sleeves and the front portion.I had an advantage that it had long sleeves which could be used to make the belt for tying.I used the back portion of the dress to make my apron as it was clean, spotless and also had no buttons.

Sleeves gone!

Front and back still joined together due to the collar

After getting rid of all unwanted portions of the dress.

A closer view of the neck after trimming into shape.

I then stitched the entire border covering it up with a blue ribbon.

It looked brand new after this:-)

I cut the sleeves into three long strips and joined them together to make one ribbon long enough to go around my waist with extra to tie up.

 Stitched the entire border to make it look nice and neat.

I also used the end part of the sleeve and the buttons to make the top part of the apron. Just added two more buttons to vary the size as required. Everything else came ready-made with the dress!

It was important to cover the elastic on the waist. So my belt was wide enough to cover it up properly. My apron is all done. But it looked very plain. So here comes the decoration bit...

Two hearts one inside the other drawn and then embroidered with lovely red. I also embroidered an apple, a banana and a strawberry on the belt.

The end result looked something like this after a good wash and iron to erase all the pen marks...