Inspired by little Kingston Rossdale, you know he's my favourite celebaby, I made the little Monster a pair of jeans. [it's killing me editing his name out of all these posts! It's such a cool name! BOOO PHOTO STEALERS BOOO]
Ok, well I didn't MAKE them from scratch, I reconstructed a pair he had. The Little Monster has a few pairs of jeans as hand-me-downs, and they. Well. They are just a bit daggy! They remind me of the jeans my dad wears. Stonewash. Not quite classed as baggy jeans, but not well fitting jeans either. And the cuffs always have to be rolled up. I have nothing against rolling up cuffs, I think it's kinda cool, but the colour and the shape of them just makes me only put the Little Monster in them when it's time to get dirty outside or when he has no other pants to wear.
As soon as I saw these jeans on Kingston I knew what I wanted to do with the Monster's jeans. I think I still need to take the Monster's in at the top, because it's got a horrible shape.
You ready for a little tutorial? I bet you are :)
This one is super simple
First grab a pair of jeans that fit your baby well. I got these for $10 from Big W and I am in love. They are the perfect colour and skinny enough for the Monster to be comfortable in them, and trendy.
Get distracted by a cute little monster, Hey I poke outta my head.
Get a pair of jeans you're not really in love with.
Gather your materials. I'm not going to be doing multi-coloured patches like Kingston's, just different denims. I collected all the denim I had in my studio :) Old pairs of jeans, denim jackets, whatever you got. I also got some fabric I wanted to use as odd patches.
You'll also need your favourite pair of scissors :) Ooh Shiny. And a GRATER, or any other way you would like to distress some of the patches. Some ways are attacking it with a fork. Or spraying it with bleach ((and letting it dry)) or any other way you can think of.
Get the jeans you are reconstructing and cut them up the inner seam.
Cut out a heap of litlte patches from your denims. Any sizes you want, they don't even have to be rectangular. For ease of sewing I kept mine rectangles :) Find interestign bits in the denim. Rip the butt pockets off an old pair of jeans and you have an interesting two-tone effect. Cut pieces out so the sideseam runs down the middle - or even off centre. Flip bits of Denim back to front for a different shade.
Distress some pieces. I cut a snip in the centre of one of the patches.
Fold it in half and scrunch it a little. Grate it!
I took a photo of the wrong side. The best side of the grater is this side. If you rub it very hard, it distresses it really well!
Little Monster saw me doing it, then wanted to climb on my lap. He grabbed the grater and the denim straight away and started distressing it himself ((very lightly, but I was amazed!)). Such an intelligent little creature!
I only distressed one piece, but you can do as many as you like!
Open up one of the jeans legs.
Position the patches as you like. I put about half of them on this side, so I had plenty for the other side.
Under the distressed piece, I put a rectangle of cool fabric ((love this series!)). Make the rectangle of fabric about the same size as the denim, because you don't want it not getting stitched to the jeans if it is too small.
Pin that junk down! Don't be scroogey with your pinning. You'll want to pin each corner of each patch AT LEAST so that they don't move around. Check out the pics for an idea. Ditto on the other side
Choose a thread that is denim friendly. I used this light blue thread that was actually a really good choice. On most pieces of the denim it was practically invisible and I was unsure if I had sewn that piece or not!
Stitch around your patches. I started going around the entire outside of it, like it was one big patch.
Then stitch all the inbetween areas, making sure that each patch is well and truly attached!
Finished that leg? Now onto the other.
Lay the jeans you love on top of the jeans you are in the process of becoming an object to love.
Cut off the excess baggage. Don't forget to leave yourself a seam allowance! If there's not much of a gap, make sure you cut off the seam bit ((remember when you cut the jeans along the seam, there'd be bits of that seam and it's allowance on one of the sides of that bit you cut))((If that makes no sense, let me know! I will draw on the picture to show what I mean)).
Flip your jeans inside out
Stitch.
Overlock. OR Zigzag if you don't have an overlocker.
Put them on your little model!
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