Rachel Hart: Reinvent your jeans!

Today's guest post is from the lovely Ms. Hart. As you will soon learn she is extremely talented. I mean EXTREMELY. So without further ado I present the refurbished jeans tutorial. If you can't get enough after reading this (spolier alert) know that she will be posting more sewing tutorials in the future!

"I LOVE JEANS. But I also love saving money. And one of the downsides of having longer legs = expensive jeans. 

SO...

This is how I refurbished an old pair of jeans. 

We're talking four year old. The first pair I bought when I got home from my mission. Big Star jeans. 

Let me say a little something about Big Star jeans.

I don't really like them now. 

Because the ones they sell now have huge rhinestones/crosses all over the back pockets...and that's just not my style right now. 

Reasons I DO love Big Star jeans: They make size X-X-Long... as in a 37.5" inseam. And I NEED that. 36" just doesn't cut it. Really. 

So I decided to make these jeans more like my Earnest Sewn jeans. 

This is Before: 

Now, I could have just gone with the old fashioned method of sewing it right down the side seam, but I don't like things to look super homemade...and sometimes that looks homemade. 

So I started out by unpicking the seam that isn't the flat-felled seam. (The flat-felled seam is the row of double stitches)

Notice that the front and back are both different lengths. (as in the front is skinnier than the back)

 This is a view of my favorite pair of Earnest Sewn jeans that I've taken apart because they were falling apart. 

So this is what I wanted the Big Star Jeans to look like. 

You can do this a couple of ways. You can measure the front and back of the jeans you want to copy and then trim your jeans down to that size with your rotary cutter. Remember to blend the seam with a ruler. 

Or you can lay the jeans down on top of the other jeans and use your handy chalk pencil and outline the effect that you want. Then use your ruler to taper. This is what I did. 

See my tapered chalk line? I pinned each chalk line together. So now I have more fabric in the back and less in the front of my jeans. The sides won't usually match up when you pin the chalk line.

Then I sewed it up! (Be careful sewing through denim if your machine has a plastic pressure foot, you may want to go get a "JEANS/DENIM" from the fabric store to sew through your denim)

This picture doesn't show any finishing touches. Whenever you're working with denim, you can use stuff like a hammer and sandpaper. 

You can use the hammer to smash down your seams. And then use the sandpaper to roughen up the seams so it looks a little more worn in. Not so homemade.

I think they turned out ok...I felt like I had a new pair of jeans!"

I think they turned out more than ok! How about all ya'll?