REPURPOSING

Why is it teenagers insist on keeping & wearing old torn up articles of clothing, do they inherit this hobby from their fathers?


For some reason I can not remember wanting to wear pants with rips in the knees, maybe it's because they didn't last long that way. Before I had a chance to take them off, my mom would start sewing on some kind of weird looking piece of fabric that looked like wallpaper from the first world war. In the morning, I would find them oddly folded (so that the patch was centered), neatly on my bed. It was almost like she felt they should be framed, to me, burned, never to return.

Now that I'm a mom, I understand & can sympathize with my children as to why they don't want a 'Tinkerbell sitting on a leaf' patch, sewn onto their knees, but I'll admit that yes, I've offered to add one on here or there. For some reason they've always declined the offer. And so the Jeans were usually thrown out, always with extreme guilt. Eventually the guilt got the better of me and so the hoarding started. Bags of old jeans grew into boxes, I knew there would come a day when I could make something out of them. That day came when one of my weekly online searches brought me to this tutorial:

http://www.allfreecrafts.com/sewing/recycled-jean-skirt.shtml

Voila!  My Rock'n 'Skean'!

I was so excited to get started, maybe I would finally have more space in my storage room. The first pair of jeans I grabbed were the pair my 15 year old daughter had dumped the night before onto my sewing table. The pattern turned out to be fairly simple & within 2 hours I had the skirt completed (the one above, modeled by my fabric donor). She was thrilled to try them/it on. That night she wore her new 'skean' (skirt/jean) out to the movies, her friends commented on how spectacular her skirt was & wondered where they could find such a hip item. My daughter smiled & said,

"My mom made it."

We are a family of nothing goes to waste, if it can be cut & sewn, it's finding a new place in our home. I encourage you to find a way to repurpose your old jeans.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

- Blanket
- Cloths pin holder
- Bath Mat
- Doll Clothes
- Pocket Purse
- Bed Mat (my next project for my 13 year old daughter's room)
- Door draft stoppers
- Heating Pad
- Pot Holders
- Pet Toys
- Craft Bag - Pet Bed/Blanket
- Christmas Stockings
- Photo Frames
- Gym strip Bag
- Library Book Bag
- Pillow
- Coffee Cup Cozy
- Scare Crow costume
- Area Rug
- Yarn
- Hanging Organizer (Pockets)
- Zippered Pouch
- Jean Patches
- Gadget Protector (cell phone, ipod)

Happy Re-Purposing!!