Another jeans refashion

Hi all! Have you heard of The Refashioners? It's an annual series hosted by Portia at makery.uk. This year, the theme is jeans. During the whole month of August guest bloggers show their inspiring creations. But there is also a sew-along, and since I love refashioning (especially denim), I decided to play along. So I went to the thrift store and returned with these two jeans...

Which I turned into this jacket...

I figured it would be hard to top my previous jeans refashion, but wanted to give it a try nevertheless. So I decided to make a denim 'military-inspired' jacket. I wanted to use the typical features of a military jacket -triangular cuffs, shoulder pads, and the (what's it called?) button placket- but in a subtle way. Furthermore, I wanted to reuse the original jeans details, but in such a way that they really got a new purpose, without the jacket looking obviously refashioned.

Thus, I went to the thrift store to find two pairs of jeans with similar weight and in different shades of blue. I used the lighter pair for the bodice and triangular cuffs, and the darker pair for the sleeves, button placket, collar and reverse applique at the front. To accentuate the features, I used bright red and gold topstitching thread. Initially I used regular thread, but I'm really glad I switched to topstitching thread. It really defines those features and adds a nice pop of color.

In my attempt to give the original details of the jeans a new purpose, I removed the zippers from both jeans and added them to the sleeve cuffs. 

Furthermore, I cut the back panel from one of the legs, with the characteristic inner seam in the center.

And I reused belt loops and buttons to keep the shoulder patches in place.

The inside was lined in yellow knit and red cotton, both from my stash. 

I added ribbing on the inside of the sleeve cuffs, to make them extra soft and comfortable. 

The jacket closes with a zipper (from my stash). The buttons are purely decorative... To be honest, I'm still a bit afraid of button holes, and I figured a zipper would be much more kid-friendly.

 The pattern is self-drafted. I originally drafted the pattern for the circus jacket that I sewed last winter. For this jacket, I adapted the sleeves, added the button placket and waistband.

 It was a fun puzzle to create the jacket, involving many 'magical' turning moments like this one...

... sewing the sleeve lining to the outer sleeve. 

I'm happy with the result, and so is my daughter! (Yes, that's a marshmallow in her hand... her payment for the photoshoot)

Thanks for the challenge, Portia!

An experiment

"Scientist by day, seamstress by night." That's how I describe myself in my profile. Of course, these are not completely separate identities, and sometimes my sewing activities are strongly influenced by my academic nature. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I like to experiment. Sometimes the result is great, sometimes it's rather, well, explosive.... (read the story about exploding wool here).
Anyway, I came up with a new idea and thought it would be a nice experiment to see if I could turn it into reality. And since I was on a roll, I decided to write this post in a scientific way too. At least some of you - fellow researchers- might appreciate that.

So here we go...

RESEARCH QUESTION
Is it possible to turn discarded jeans into a wearable and cool quilted vest?

DESIGN
The envisioned design is sketched in the Figure below.

The aim was to design the vest with a continuous pattern. Thus, there would be no side seams or shoulder seams. The hood would be created by attaching the two back middle strips to the front middle strips. The pockets would be hidden in the pattern.

METHOD
Materials Several pairs of discarded jeans, in various shades of blue, thread, a 50 cm zipper, half a yard of lightweight knit, half a yard of batting

Procedure. The flowchart of the procedure is displayed in Figure 1.

1. As a first step, the jeans were cut into parallelograms (width: 13 cm, height: xx cm, angle: 36*). Next, several lay-outs were tried. The optimal lay-out was determined based on peer feedback gathered through a small survey on Instagram.
2. Then, the parallelograms were attached in long strips, and next the strips were sewed together.
3. The fit of the garment was tested on the end-user. Several seams were opened using a seam ripper, and the fit was adapted.
4. Step 3 was repeated multiple times
5. The zipper, lining and waistband were added
6. The armholes were finished
7. Step 3 was repeated (grumble...) 

After completion of the process, end-user feedback was gathered. In return for payment (2 marshmallows per end-user), photos were taken (weather conditions: slightly overcast, 18 degrees Celcius)

RESULTS

The end result of the experiment is shown in the remaining Figures.
The envisioned design was realized completely. With respect the wearability, the experiment was quite successful. 

The vest turned out slightly too big for end user 1, and way too big for end user 2, but considering the growing rate of both users, this is not too problematic. 

With respect to the coolness, the first end user gave a score of 6 out of 10, whereas the second end user gave a score of 10 out of 10.  

CONCLUSION

The experiment shows that it is possible to turn discarded jeans into a wearable and cool vest (according to two end users). The process took a fair amount of time, and the seam ripper was used frequently. Nevertheless, I'd like to conclude that this experiment was successful.