BERNINA Corporate Blog -After making these dungarees for my daughter, out of my husbands unwanted jeans, he now knows that his trash is my treasure. Your husband might give you flowers, my husband gives me jeans 😉
I now have (…wait for it) 12 pairs of jeans to upcycle. Exciting isn’t it?
It feels good to upcycle, taking something I already have and turning it into something new that’s useful and beautiful, instead of simply throwing it away. And at the same time making a positive impact on the environment, minimising the amount of discarded materials.
Upcycling jeans is a very creative process because of the amount of seams that you need work around. To make these culottes I used 3 pairs of jeans, mostly because I wanted 3 different colours of denim, but I had to be very careful about pattern placement in order to get 2 panels out of each pair of jeans.
I’ve got enough left over to make another pair of culottes for my younger daughter and I need to be particularly creative to use up the denim that will be left after that.
The pattern was from my Japanese Sewing Book (translated to French), Collection Privée Filles et Gaçon. They were very quick and easy to sew.
I get so much satisfaction out of sewing denim and I love that worn, beaten up look that old jeans bring to new items, we all know that denim gets better with age.
And because I like denim a bit rough around the edges, I left the hem raw.
The raw and distressed look can look a bit messy if overdone, so my daughter paired her culottes with a crisp pale pink blouse to balance it all out. 
My daughter loves her new culottes. Her daddy smiles to see her in his old clothes, looking so cool. And I am happy that I can make his old jeans sparkle again.
Next time you have a pair of jeans that you no longer want to wear, get creative and consider upcycling. It really is very rewarding and fun.
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