This post is a good news, bad news type of post! The good news is I came up with an interesting wallet to make from part of an old pair of jeans. The bad news ... I made a felt wallet in September 2010 that I wrote a post about here. At the time, I'd been using EcoFelt (made from recycled plastic and the type of felt you get at quite a few craft/sewing stores) for different projects, but none that took a lot of wear. After about half a year of being in my purse it looked a little worse for the wear. Now, it looks a LOT worse! It looks like paying extra for wool felt might be best for items that are used a lot.
Today I finally had to get rid of it and come up with something new. I love to use old denim jeans in new sewing projects - this one is pretty quick and easy.
Materials:
*About 13 inches of the leg from a pair of denim jeans
*2 zippers
*a large button
1. Cut 13 1/2 inches from the bottom of one of the legs of a pair of jeans.
2. Sew along the top and the bottom. I used my zipper foot on the bottom.
3. Draw chalk lines 4, 5, and 9 inches from the bottom of the leg.
4. Cut the top and bottom lines open from seam to seam.
5. Take one of the zippers and trim to fit in the top slit. Sew a new stop at the bottom of the zipper.
6. Pin zipper inside the slit opening. You can pin through both layers of jeans.
7. With a full 6 strands of either coordinating or colored embroidery floss, sew zipper in using a blanket stitch. Be sure you only sew through one layer of jeans. Repeat with other slit opening.
8. Sew along the middle chalk line and then resew over it.
9. Sew a button hole at the cut edge of the jeans leg and a button at the hem side.
10. Fold up and button.
Happy Creating! Deborah
Very nice! I love making things out of old clothing and this is really a useful item to make.
ReplyDeleteI find that FELT that is bought never holds up for anything except decorations. I usually find old sweaters and felt them myself. They hold up better for purses and items of heavy use.
Keep showing us what you do to recycle clothing. It's a good thing... and they're charming.
Thank you! And that's a great idea to felt old sweaters to use for heavy use items.
DeleteA very cool project. I make lots of items from old jeans as well. It's really hard wearing - thougha bit of a pain to sew at times; I find denim machine needles are a must!
ReplyDelete