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.
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