Upcycling - Turning Jeans into a Skirt

Over Easter, I had a few days off from work, and during this time I decided to do a big Spring Clean. This involved everything (except my boyfriends things of course) from clothes to collected clutter. I then went through all my clothes to decide which fabrics I wanted to use, to those things that were suitable to give to charity. I found I had a pair of Topshop jeans that weren't too battered and beaten to be chucked away, and that were a nice denim that it could be useful to use in design journals next year.

Then I thought about Upcycling these jeans into a denim skirt - it is summer after all! So here is how I did it:

 

 I took the jeans pictured above, and I cut them at the knees (as in the picture below), much longer than I anticipated the skirt to be, so that I could choose the desired length later, and leave enough extra on the hem the skirt.

I then opened the Inside Leg seams to open the jeans into a skirt. The Front Rise was unpicked to the bottom of the zip fastening and the back rise was unpicked up to halfway of the seam.

I then changed the way the back rise sat, eliminating the curve as much as possible to create a straight seam. I then added the extra top-stitching as in the original design of the jeans.

 

At this point, I cut the skirt to the desired length with added hem depth. I then pinned the front rise so that it overlapped under the zip and lay flat. I cut up part of one of the remaining legs to add an insert into the front where the inside legs now opened out. I then stitched this in place following the original design of the top-stitching.

 

To finish the skirt I hemmed it, and pressed it. The finished result can be seen below!

 

I would really recommend Upcycling your old clothes, maybe you find something boring now and would like to update it's style? It took me 2 and a half hours to change these jeans into a skirt, and it is definitely worth taking the time to do it.

Feel free to let me know what you've upcycled!

Images are from my own camera.