Ruffled Jean Skirt

Not much time open for crafting these days, but I did manage to get a little sewing done over the last... well... three months. Yeah, I know, that's a long time for three little projects. Good news is, they're all done now so I wanted to share a couple of the pictures.

I made two skirts from some old holy jeans the kids had laying around. The hardest part of the project was recreating the center seam once the jeans were cut apart. I cut the jeans a little longer than the final length, then ripped out the center seam of the jeans. Next step is wrestling with all the thick jean folds, adding a small piece of jean scrap in the center and sewing it all flat. MAJOR PAIN. Luckily, these jeans had white seams already, so no special thread was needed, I just sewed over the seam a couple times to give it the look of a thicker jean thread. Once the jeans were put together, I cut across the bottom of the skirt to even up the bottom. Be careful to leave some seam allowance area on the back of the skirt, leaving at least an inch below the back pockets.

Next up - super easy step, making the ruffled layers. These strips of fabric were cut at 3.5, 6.5 and 9.5 inches. I held these strips up to my skirt until they went around the skirt width about one and a half times, then sewed them in three separate circles. Each circle was serged at the bottom edge, but you could zigzag them too.

The three circles were then basted together (at the top, where they'll attach to the jean part of the skirt) to create a stack of circles. The baste stitch was pulled to gather the ruffles. With right sides together, the jean was sewn to the ruffles. After pressing flat on the right side, I added a topstitch on jean part of skirt. Again I ran over the stitch twice to mimic the thicker jean thread. Very excited that it's finally finished!