Jean reconstruction, Part 1.

Being on a tight budget, like many families, I try to reuse as many pieces of clothing as possible for multiple kids. Very often kids will outgrow an article of clothing long before they trash it. Not so in the case of Dimples and his jeans. He is a knee buster and has torn through the right knee of nearly every pair of pants he as worn since he was about 2. This has left me with many pairs of pants, where the only thing wrong is a hole in the knee. For four years I have held on to these, not exactly sure what to do with them, but not wanting to throw them away. I also didn’t want to give them away, because who wants a holey pair of jeans?

So when Cricket needed new jeans, I started searching online (because who wants to browse at a store with three kids in tow?) and found that, yes, people do want holey jeans and apparently will pay ridiculous amounts for jeans with a worn look. I finally figured out how to salvage all those holey jeans and outfit Cricket for the winter with little to no money spent on doing so. I am going to try to make this a tutorial of sorts, because I know others out there might want to try the same thing.

 

I pulled out six pairs of jeans that would fit Cricket with a cinch of the waist and a few folds of the bottom cuff. I also pulled out 5 pairs of smaller jeans that I could use as patch material.

I asked Cricket what color he wanted and he said yellow. It is his favorite color. I choose to make a patch from the black jeans, because I have yellow thread that would show up well. 

The first step is to clean up the hanging threads on the jeans that need to be patched. I just clipped off the longest threads. Next I cut a patch out of the black jeans that would fully cover the hole. I didn't want this to look too "done" so I didn't measure or even make sue that the rectangle was even.  I also didn't leave extra material for turning under edges for two reasons. One, trying to sew through 3 layers of denim (one for the jean, two for the turned seam patch) would likely break my needle. And two, I wanted the edges to fray with washing, giving it a look like all those expensive, designer jeans.

 Now you could hand sew the patch on, but with small jeans like this, even that will be tricky. I prefer machine sewing, so I had to open up a seam. From what I can tell, there are two different types of seams on a pair of jeans. There is your "typical" seam, where no stitching shows, and the "jean" seam where you see the top stitching, often done in yellow. Which side the typical seam is on varies. For instance, the pair of jeans I am wearing while typing this has the typical seam on the outside, but the pair used for this post has it on the inseam. It is the typical seam that you want to open up, otherwise you will need to match up the thread used for the top stitching.

Turn the jeans inside out so you can easily get to the seam. Get out your seam ripper and open a hole that is large enough for you to move around, but avoid opening it all the way to the bottom hem. It will be harder to close if you have to deal with the bottom hem as well. Start small at first, you can always open it further if needed. If you don't have a seam ripper, you need to get one. I consider it to be one of the most important items in a sewing kit, regardless if you are a master sewer or just patch things here and there.

Time to attach the patch. This is where your own style and creativity comes in. You can use a straight stitch like I did, or a decorative one. You can also use any color you want. It is up to you. I recommend pinning the patch on so it is not moving around. My original idea here was to have a bunch of lines across the patch, to show off the yellow. After I had the patch attached, I noticed some scraps from a school bag that I had made Cricket several months ago. Since he had picked out that fabric himself, I decided to add a small piece, for more even more yellow. I didn't hem this piece either, because I wanted it to fray with time. A couple of lines later and I was finished.

Now to close up the seam again. Because the stitching was not going to show, I didn't bother changing my machine bobbins. When I took apart the seam originally, I saw that there were two lines of stitching. One straight and one overlock. I don't have an overlock/serger machine, so I had to settle for a straight stitch and a zig zag. It's not perfect, but it works.And now you are all done! Turn the jeans right side out and try them on.

Cricket seems to like his new patch. This is actually the second pair that I have patched for him, so he is starting to get used to his "special" jeans.

You may have noticed that the title of this post says Part 1. That is because I am also in the process of re-working jeans for the other two kids. For Dimples, I am re-working two pairs of his sister's old jeans. I am not sure yet exactly what I will do, but I will post once  figure it out. For Freckles, she has a large number of jeans that are just one size too small for her. My plan there is to take out the outside seam and add fabric to increase the size. A post on that will also be put up once it is finished.

A Monkey Tale

I LOVE making costumes. They are probably my favorite thing to sew. I bought my first sewing machine for the main purpose of sewing Halloween costumes. I have made a polar bear, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Little Bo Peep, a lamp to go with Bo Peep, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Snow White.  But when Cricket, my third child came along, I found very little time left to make them.

My friend, Ms. J, has an adorable 2yo, we will call him Cheeks, and she wanted to find a sock monkey costume for Halloween. She found one online but it was a little “odd” looking (and sold out). Yeah, it kind of looked like a sock monkey, but the hat had the face. I have always found costumes where the character’s face/mouth is on the hat portion of the outfit to be a little weird. I mean, am I the only one who thinks it looks like the child has been swallowed by the character and is now peaking out of it’s neck? No? That is just me?

Anyway, Ms. J found an online tutorial on how to make a sock monkey costume and wondered out loud on her Facebook wall if she would be able to put something like that together. Since Cricket is 4 now, and fairly self sufficient, (as in he can use the potty himself) I jumped at the chance to help her. I didn’t really have any other costumes to make this Halloween. Freckles is 10, so she is far too cool to go trick or treating anymore. Dimples wants to be Han Solo and already gathered clothes from his closet that will work. Cricket is more than happy to give Clifford his third Halloween go round.

The online tutorial looked easy enough. (you can find it here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Sock-Monkey-costume-for-toddler/) but it turned out to be a little trickier than I originally thought. I think the main problem was that I used “official” sock monkey socks, (which I found at Hobby Lobby) which were likely less stretchy and smaller than the work socks she used. But I think it still turned out OK.

Now I didn’t take pictures along the way, so if you want to make it yourself you will have to follow the other tutorial. I know… noob blogger mistake. :\  I promise to try to get better at that. But the tutorial is a really good starting point, and I recommend it. A change to the original design that I made was that it is a stand alone costume. Meaning that I did not attach it to a set of Pjs like the tutorial. I did however add snaps along the back, to make it easier to get into. The key is to find an outfit that doesn’t stretch too much when the child puts it on, and use that as a pattern when you are laying out the socks. I ended up using 4 pairs of socks for what would be about an 18-24 size outfit. I did not have the same amount of leftovers as the tutorial, so I needed another pair to make the hat.

Changes I would make if I did it again… I would try to add red to the bottom area, like a real sock monkey has, and I would have made the ears out of the heather brown portion of the sock, rather than from the heel and toe. I also would have shaped the bottom better, so it was tapered on the sides, again, so it looks more like a real sock monkey.

Cheeks was not too sure about the fitting process. In fact, he cried like we were sticking him with pins. : (  But Ms. J reports that after dressing for their costume party, Cheeks had a change of heart. He ended up chasing his own tail around. :D I can’t wait to be his personal seamstress next year!