Upcycling a pair of jeans
Apr 07, 2021
A couple of years ago, 2018, I inherited a skinny pair of jeans from my sister.
They were super comfortable to wear, and they quickly became my second skin and I wore them everywhere. But then the inevitable happened……
…. soon my favourite skinny jeans started fraying in the knee.
So, being an avid mender, I took great delight in this (after a moment of being sad that they were starting to get worn out) and the first mend had an array of sashiko stitches including persimmon flower stitch with ten cross, and the frayed area was whip stitched with a layer of denim behind the original jean fabrics.
The first mend relaxing on the beach in Byron Bay, Australia in 2019.
Then, a year later, in 2020, I began to notice another draft: this time in the crotch.
No worries, I thought, I will just mend them with some more sashiko stitching.
The second mend
And before long, one mend had turned into multiple mends.
The 3rd mend.
Then there were a few more mends on the other cheek. By now the original jean fabric was so soft, and I had reinforced the mends with a stiffer denim - it felt like I was wearing a nappy. Yuk! That's not much fun.
But, I didn’t want to throw my much loved pair of jeans away. So I recycled them into
a covid face mask (the best for wearing glasses)
But my most favourite up-cycling project was turning my jeans into a skirt. So now I can continue wearing my skinny jeans, as a skirt instead!!
Denim jeans into skirt with sashiko mends.
If you’d like to know how to turn your jeans into a skirt, I was inspired by
If you would like to learn how to mend using sashiko stitches, download your free pdf guide here >>
