Stripes and Denim

Hello Readers. Today's project is actually 2 projects. They go together and are very similar. I made them at the same time so I decided to show them to you at the same time.

*** PART 1 ***

It all began with these skinny jeans. They were soft and broken in. They fit pretty well but they were not quite right. They were faded at the knees. Well, they were supposed to be faded at the knees. Can you see how the faded spots are below my knees? This is a common problem for short girls. My legs are not nearly as long as these jeans think they should be. Even when I cuffed them to the right length, I couldn't move the faded spots up on my real knees.

I decided to make shorts and cut off the faded spots altogether. Skinny jeans are sometimes too tapered and tight around the thighs to make comfortable shorts. I have a solution for that. The solution is this black skirt. This black skirt is too tight on me. It fit when I bought it but now it is too tight. I might as well use it to make something else.

I cut the panels from the skirt. I cut 2 narrow pieces and 2 wide pieces. I used the smaller pieces for the shorts. (The larger pieces are for later.) All the pieces are slightly wider at the bottom than they are at the top. That helped the shorts fit comfortably around my thighs.

I cut the side seams of the jeans open and inserted the black pieces. It made the legs of the shorts wide enough to make comfortable shorts. I hemmed them the length I wanted. It makes a contrasting black stripe down the side.

If you look closely, you can see where my little guy splattered yogurt at me. #momlife 

*** PART 2 ***

I also had a denim skirt exactly like the black one. I bought it when I bought the black skirt. I remember thinking I liked how they fit when I bought them but I never wore them because they were too tight. Did they shrink??? Did I grow??? (Maybe. Probably. Definitely.)

I cut the side seams open on the skirt and added the 2 wider black pieces from the black skirt. The denim skirt needed to be wider to fit around my hips so I added as much black fabric as I needed to make the skirt fit well. 

I liked the new look of the skirt. The black stripes down the sides made the plain denim a little more interesting but the colors are still neutral and subdued. It was easy to wear. I wore it to a local paint night. It was fun but painting is difficult. Very, very difficult. 

This picture is really dark.                             This one is better.

These were fun to put together. I had 3 items that didn't fit well and now I have 2 that fit great.

Thanks for reading, now go make something fun for yourself.