Turn Jeans into a Waistcoat

I have a few pairs of jeans some are as good as new and get sold on Getthrifty, others however are suitable for the bin - but I dont want to send clothes to landfill.

You need to see 'Clothes' as 'Material', unpick the original sewing and you have a blank canvas to work from, right?

I recently bought a denim waistcoat from Topshop - and I didnt like the price! not one bit! but I really wanted my daughter to have one too. So this will be my first project.

Where to start...

Remove the legs, leave enough room at the top to make a skirt? shorts? or bag?

Remove both legs

Use an unpicker to unpick the seems

I did this whilst watching Tv and took me around 30-45 minutes - so you could do this faster

This is what you should be left with, I have kept the original seams to save on more sewing

Draw around an item of clothing that fits, I was lucky enough to have a waistcoat but its just as easy to use a shirt and fold in the sleeves

Sew your denim together and with a chalk mark the shape of the template over the denim.

Cut out your template.

Hem the edges, I have pinned mine first

Sew the hem

I have now decided to add a Lining to make it more pretty

Use pins to keep the lining in place, fold over the linen to act like a hem and sew

Now, Sew the shoulders together, try and keep with the natural shoulder which generally points downwards away from the body, you could also place the waistcoat on and pin to fit.

Well, My daughter was impressed, and even if she just uses it for dress up its better then sending it to landfill!

The waistcoat took me around 3-4 hours to complete.

I had some more material left over from the jeans, so heres what I made, each item took less then 30minutes to make.

Beans bags (filled with rice and lentils) we set up a bowl and had to get the bags in the target! great fun

I used the top of the jeans to make my daughter a little handbag, add some ribbon and pretty things.

A coin purse from just cutting the pocket out

If you wanted you could add some fringing

What have you made to recycle, upcycle your old denim jeans? Please leave a comment, and even links to your upcycled items.