Recycle jeans into pencase – free embroidery files. This is a very useful project to start with.
Therer’s still a part left of the old jeans I wanted to recycle. I already made a colourful bag, a marble labyrinth, a fanny pack out of it. Next thing will be an original and funny pencase. It has a plastic flap, so you can fix it in a ring binder. Isn’t that smart?
I will cut the parts out of the rest of the jeans:
My BERNINA 700 will get the job done.
What do you need to recycle jeans into pencase?
- 3 patches of jeans (or heavy weight cotton) in the sizes: 22 x 4 cm, 22 x 9 cm, 22 x 12 cm.
- A blind zipper 24 cm or longer.
- A piece of firm plastic 15 x 3 cm (that can be sewn).
- Embroidery thread Mettler Poly Sheen in 1 or 2 contrasting colors, Mettler Denim Doc to topstitch besides the zipper.
- Cut away stabilizer
- The Large Oval hoop
- The embroidery file in EXP or PES
Let’s get prepared to recycle jeans:
Overlock the jeans patches:
And start embroidering the pencase:
Hoop the stabiliser. In a former blog post, I told you how to save on stabilizer, this project is one you could reuse the left over side parts.
Embroider the first line, it’s a rectangle that shows you the finished size and it has a line to position the zipper.
Pin the zipper, centered on the zipper line. Leave the puller outside the rectangle.
The second line stitches the upper part of the zipper to the stabiliser. The third line is for the bottom part.
Pin the smalles patch in the overlocked seam on the zipper (right side down), as you can see in this picture:
The fourth line stitches the fabric to the zipper. Fold the patch over and pin it.
Pin the middle-sized rectangle to the bottom part of the zipper (right side down).
The fifth line sews this patch to the zipper. Fold it over and pin it.
The sixth and seventh line do the topstitching besides the zipper. Take Mettler Denim Doc as embroidery thread.
Open the zipper with the puller inside the original rectangle.
The eighth line is a rectangle, in the size of your pen case. It fixes both previous jeans patches to the stabiliser.
Next thing to do is embroidering the text in one or two colours, your choice 🙂 .
Finishing the project:
Perforate the plastic part and position it in the middle of the upperside of the pencase. Put it right side down and fix it with adhesive tape.
The next straight line on top of the rectangle fixes it to the front part of your pencase.
Open the zipper or the biggest part.
To finish the pen case, you will put the remaining jeans patch on top of your work (right side down). Pin it to the project.
The last embroidery line stitches the seam of the pen case.
Take the project out of the hoop and remove as much stabiliser as you can.
Cut out the corners before turning.
Turn the pencase through the open zipper.
Push out the corners, to get a neat look.
Now you’re ready. You see it’s easy to sew a pencase out of a jeans in the hoop.
The plastic flap helps you to fix it in a ring binder. No more lost pens when you attend a meeting.
Let us know if you have plans for recycling jeans as well?
Do you plan to recycle jeans into pencase (free download embroidery files)?
Absolutely awesome idea. Love using the plastic tab. I have tried the brad inserts on cloth…and mess up with the process. I wish you would have included a PDF file of the shape, size of the plastic. I have old plastic folders I could use to recycle!
Oh, Carol, I’m sorry if it wasn’t clear… A piece of 15 x 3 cm, just punch holes and cut the corners round. Hope it works out well, now…
Where is the file for the pencase itself?
Hi Skiver, this is an ‘in the hoop’ project, als called ITH. If you read the blogpost till the end, you will find out through all the steps that the embroidery machine does it all (except overlocking the jeans scraps). At first you sew the zipper, then do the embroidery and finish by closing the pencase. The embroidery files are found when clicking the words under EXP and PES (in red), these are links to a zip file. After unzipping it, you can use it. I hope you can find it now.