The suprisingly ripped Jeans

I know you expect to read a post about my finished wrap dress… I too expected this. But I surprised myself by tackling a long-time project instead: taking in the waistband of a long-loved jeans.
All of you have seen photos of me and you noticed I am a bit curvier at my backside. Not only do I have a generous behind, I also have a swayback which makes buying trousers and especially jeans a daunting endeavour. Nevertheless, I buy jeans and always hope they will magically transform when taken home. They never do this. Never.

For many years I simply bought too big jeans and let them slide down until my helpful hips stopped them. But now, as I am a bit better in knitting and fell in love with short and tighter sweaters, I wanted some trousers which sit on my waist and not at my knees hips.
As a preparation I watched several videos on how to alter a jeans waistband. Most advised to unpick the waistband and then firstly alter the trousers, then the waistband and at least sewing on the waistband again.




Sigh - too many steps. I want it fast, I want it now. I fetched my jeans and thought ‚Why not insert some darts? I already promised your, dear readers, some darts on the backside of my wrap dress.‘ And so it was decided, I will inserts darts at the back of my jeans. I measured the access width of the waistband (12 cm) and divided it into two darts I positioned above the pockets on the back of my trousers. I pinned these darts and killed some of my lovely flower pins while doing this. Jeans is a thick and sturdy material – wow.
Then I simply sewed these darts and tried the trousers on. Perfect. Really. I did not initiate disaster while doing this, I was amazed myself. Originally, I wanted to cut the access fabric on the inside of the darts away, but, who knows… perhaps I will gain weight sometimes, so I let them as they were. This access fabric on the inside of the trousers is not visible and it doesn’t pinch me, so it is allowed to stay :-D
But back to the disaster. The jeans have very small destroyed details. Super small details – tiny tiny – until I snagged on my cupboards handle, after trying the freshly altered jeans on. Now I have a much bigger destroyed detail. So big I no longer would call it a detail. AHHHHHHHH




With my waistband perfected and the knee ripped, I became desperate… and saw the wrap dress which is made from this strange stiff and sturdy fabric. I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut into the wrap dress for a big enough patch. Naaaahhhhh joking 🙃 I have a big rest of this fabric and as it is so sturdy I guessed it will make a nice patch for the jeans. I cut a much bigger rectangle than the actual hole in my jeans, as the whole area around the knee feels frail. I turned the jeans inside out, pinned the patch and sewed it on. And I loooove it. My first idea was to embroider this hole so that you cannot see the patch, but I like the flower pattern which is peeping out of the ripped area. I will therefore leave the hole open for now.




So, this was my #needleworkmonday adventure which only subtle involved the wrap dress :-D


Thank you @crosheille for initiating and @muscara, @shanibeer, @marblely for hosting the #needleworkmonday. If you want to see more beautiful projects with yarn, fabric and most of all needles, follow @needleworkmonday. Or even better grab your needles and keyboard and join the #needleworkmonday community.