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.

8 ways to upcycle jeans

Today I’m contributing to the Kids Clothes Week blog with an inspiration post about upcycling jeans. So I thought it would be fun to give an overview of my own denim creations here.

1. One of the very first items I ever sewed was this cute denim dress for my daughter. Of course, I made a lot of beginner’s errors; for example using some very sturdy jeans, which made the dress rather stiff. Nevertheless, it is still one of my favorite creations. If only because my little girl looked so incredibly cute in it.

2. Next, I upcycled jeans into some colorful skirts (before my life as a blogger).

3. I used denim to create fun knee patches

And more patches

4. A knight’s tunic

5. Surfer shorts

6. Bubble pocket shorts

7. A biker jacket

8. And a sweater with denim details

(Love to see how my little girl has grown in the past five years...)

Need more inspiration? I collected a lot of ideas on this Pinterest board. Or hop over to the Kids Clothes Week blog to read more.

The denim challenge

Sewing a biker jacket has been on my wish list for quite a while, so when Project Run and Play announced this season’s themes, I immediately knew what to make for the ‘Denim Challenge’.

And a challenge it was indeed! This jacket was definitely out of my comfort zone. The pattern is the Young Hero from Ottobre 4-2012. Used as I am to sewing simple tees and sweaters, the number of pattern pieces was overwhelming in itself: 19 pieces and 3 zippers! And reading the instructions, I was intimidated… I simply didn’t understand!
However, when going through it step by step, it turned out not to be too complicated after all.

The jacket is upcycled from three pairs of jeans, which required some creative cutting. The largest pieces -the front and back panels- were cut out of a pair of men’s jeans. It just fit. The other parts – sleeves, collar and yoke pieces- were cut out of two women’s jeans.

The lining fabric is a wonderful heathered teal blue knit that I got at the local fabric market. All topstitching was done in neon orange-pink thread.

The end result: not perfect but very OK for my first jacket. Most important is that my girl loves it (which is not always the case with the things I make for her).

After this adventure I quickly slipped back into my comfort zone and whipped up this cool sweater. The sweater is made from the same teal knit, and is embellished with denim shoulder patches and a big fat M. The edges are left raw, and will fray over time.

As pattern I traced out a well-fitting tee. When sewing up this sweater last night I thought it would end up way too big for her, but low and behold, it fits perfectly! I clearly need to update my mental image of this rapidly growing kid.

For the sidetag (as well as for the hook on the jacket), I folded a piece of twill tape and zigzagged a line with the coral thread. Simple but effective. 

I was a bit afraid that the neon coral thread would be dismissed as too pink. I already had a cover story ready to convince her (it’s the same color as the stripes on Dutch police cars, and they are cool right?), and was even ready to replace it with another color if needed. But again, she surprised me by declaring that this was her favorite sweater! Pheww!

I love it too. It's cool, but not overly boyish. And this soft blue color is perfect on her.
So, a happy girl and a satisfied mom. Now on to cleaning up the mess in my sewing room, which I abandoned way past bedtime last night!

One-nap project: fun knee patches

 Sometimes I crave a fun little project that I can complete within an hour or so, giving me instant satisfaction! This whale patch was such a project. 

Patching pants doesn't have to be boring! In fact, the most popular pin from my blog features jeans patched with a bunch of denim stars.

I ripped the outer seam, cut out this whale from an old pair of jeans and appliqued it onto the knee. 

Add some extra stitches to draw the spout, mouth and eye, sew back the outer seam and you're done! 

Instant reward!