Recycle: from a jeans to a marble labyrinth

I had a jeans, begging to be recycled. At first I made a bag of it. Watch the blogpost ‘From a jeans to a bag‘. After the bag was made, half of the jeans fabricwas left. Today I start an embroidery project on the embroiderymachine BERNINA 700.

What do I need?

• An old jeans
• Mettler Poly Sheen embroidery thread
• The Maxi hoop
• Cut away stabiliser (a light weight cotton fabric is optional)
• Mettler Web Bond temprary adhesive spray
• A small marble (or a pearl, or a voluminous button)
• Application scissors could be useful.
• The embroidery file (digitized in the BERNINA V8 Designer Plus), You will find it in EXP and PES: Labyrinth Maxi hoop

Redesign jeans to a children’s toy.

Let’s start:

From the legs of the jeans I cut 2 rectangles of 29 x 21 cm.

I use leftover stabiliser to stitch together. This is an ideal project to do this. How you do this is described in the blogpost ‘Save on stabiliser for embroidery‘.

Use cut away stabiliser, or use leftover stripes.

Start with the red thread and use it till you embroider the labyrinth.

At first you embroider a rectangle, it helps you to position the jeans scrap. Temporary adhesive spray is very helpful to fix it.

The next rectangle fixes the fabric to the project. The circles are stitched as well.

Cut away the fabric within the circles, leave the stabilliser for now.

Next is the satin stitch around the openings, and you will find the 2 hearts as well. They help the child with the orientation of the toy. It is now easy to find out if they continue in the right direction.

And to finish the marble labyrinth:

If you’d like a more firm finish, you can take an extra layer of light weight cotton as stabiliser for the marble labyrinth. Fix it with temporary adhesive spray to the back of your work (if it has a different front and back, than place the right side towards the stabiliser). Do the same for the second jeans fabric at the back of your work.

Take the 2nd embroidery color to continue.

Take bobbin thread in the color of your embroidery thread and continue with the 2nd embroidery colour. In my project, it’s green. You will now stitch the labyrinth.

Cut away the fabric around the rectangle of the labyrinth. Cut as close as you can, without cutting the stitched lines. Application scissors can be useful.

Cut as close as you can around the marble labyrinth.

Take your third color embroidery thread, mine is orange. Don’t forget the bobbin 🙂 You will stitch a satin stitch over the edge.

You are ready with the labyrinth. You can take your work out of the hoop and tear away the stabiliser. 

Recycle quickly: from a jeans to a toy.

Don’t you think it’s a nice marble labyrinth?