Thursday, November 18, 2010

Flare to Skinny Jeans

Hey ya, I got an easy tutorial to make those outdated flare jeans into skinny minnies. Soo when you're thrifting, don't just skip over those wide legged pants(although they're making a come back in office wear..). I bought these jeans at the Goodwill in Pittsburgh for about $4. I got hips that don't lie so when I saw this....

..I couldn't really pass them up. Okay well here we go with a B4 shot..


B4

First step is to take off yo pants (and jacket) and turn them inside out. Put them on inside out.




I do my new seam in the inside leg, just incase I make a mistake, it's easier to hide. So take one leg of the pant and pull it in. Pin from the top of you leg and work your way down to the hem. About where your knee is, is where you will begin to take a good portion in. Make sure when you pin together, you are smoothing jean fabric as much as possible, as to not make bunches. (Make sure you're leaving enough space for your foot to escape when taking off the pants!)


After you are done with one leg it will look something like this.. FYI if you're a little hippier (like you've also got honest hips) try not to make the jeans as skinny. Wearing clothes is like an illusion so if you want to skew perception, make the leg more boot cut than skinny. It'll "even" you out.



Alright now take off your pants and lay on the ground and fold one leg over the other. We're going to use the pinned leg to help us pin the other leg. This will allow your pants to be more even than if you just pinned the other leg while you were wearing it.



Alright, so once the other side is pinned and free of possible bunches (is your fabric smooth??) it's time to sew. Bust out your handy dandy sewing machine and set its length to the highest setting to make a basting stitch. If there's a mistake, it'll be easy to remove the stitches and fix them. Once you're done both legs, turn rightside out and try on your pants. If they fit the correct way you'd like them to, go ahead and stitch a stay stitch (shorter length stitch). You may cut off your excess fabric and strut yo stuff in your new fashionable pantalones.

One problem you may run into is when meeting the new stitch with the existing stitch. To prevent a puckering in your pants make sure you are creating a GRADUAL stitch. No sudden jumps here please.




(See the stitch on the left wasn't gradual enough, so I fixed it with the right stitch.)


And here I am making funny faces because I am happy that I'll have a pair of pants to wear tomorrow, since all of mine have been accumulating in ikea bags to be sent home and washed...FOR FREE!