The renewal of my favorite
old pair of jeans is finally finished. I
chose to use only materials that I could find within my own home, in order to
maximize the potential for both saving money and having less of an environmental
impact. This meant having to work with
what I have, rather than running off to find the perfect materials for the
project. This meant I had to be more creative.
I started
with a five year old pair of jeans with gigantic knee-holes. It's very easy to see that I haven't been gentle with them.
I then
grabbed scissors, ribbon, and a needle.
The biggest
needle I could find was an embroidery needle, which actually ended up working
perfectly. The reason an embroidery needle
was beneficial was that when I looked at the available ribbons, I discovered
that the only one that wouldn’t look too garish was 3mm wide, which was just
small enough to fit inside the eye without me having to do any creative folding. Success!
Here is a
good time to remind you that I don’t have any sewing skills. This is important, because it helps
illustrate just how much a person can do if they truly want to. It doesn’t matter if you can’t sew. If I can do it, so can you.
And if you can sew?
Well, you’re going to be able to come up with some truly inspiring
results that far surpass my own!
So what are
the steps involved with this simple DIY project?
1.
Find
some old jeans that are in desperate need of repair.
2.
Gather
scissors, a big needle, and a spool of ribbon that is thin enough to guide
through the needle’s eye. (Embroidery
thread might look pretty good, as well)
3.
Cut
the “fluff” and strands from around the edges of the hole.
4. Start sewing. I actually ended up doing this in a manner
that resembles cross-stitch. I brought
the ribbon through and across the hole in lines, then, once I got to the end I
brought it back across to create x’s.
5.
I
allowed about three inches of ribbon to stand out at the beginning, as well as
at the end, so that I could tie bows when the stitches were complete.
So, this
still wasn’t good enough for me.
Functionally speaking, this worked quite well. Aesthetically speaking, though, it made me
want to hurl. There was nothing about it
that actually looked good. If all I
wanted was to mend a hole, I wouldn’t have needed something like ribbon.
So I
continued the design. I sewed a few more
lines of x’s into the denim in order to create a design of sorts, and ended up
with this.
I can’t help
but wonder if it’ll draw stares in public, due to the unusual design. I suppose I’ll find out soon enough. I’m actually looking forward to that.
I’m typing
this out while wearing the jeans, and I plan to wear them all day long. This is because I’m testing the
integrity. Will it come apart? Will new holes suddenly form?
Stay tuned
for another DIY project update!
Previous Posts on this subject:
Reuse that Old Clothing! Part 2
**be sure to read the next post: Reuse that old clothing! Part 4 if you choose to do this. It provides insight that could be quite valuable to a person that doesn't sew. Even if you do sew, I'd recommend reading it, if for nothing else than to have a good laugh!
**be sure to read the next post: Reuse that old clothing! Part 4 if you choose to do this. It provides insight that could be quite valuable to a person that doesn't sew. Even if you do sew, I'd recommend reading it, if for nothing else than to have a good laugh!
No comments:
Post a Comment