DIY: From ugly jeans to beautiful apron

Last week when I was organizing my studio I found a pair of jeans that I just can't stand, yes, I developed this weird feeling towards a helpless pair of jeans, can you believe it?

What I dislike the most about these jeans is that I bought them for all the wrong reasons: they have a floral print (that I'm not crazy about), they were cheap (not a valid reason to buy anything ) and the worst reason of all, I was convinced by someone else that those were MY kind of jeans, when that is really not the case (Peer pressure at my age? Come on! )

I ended up with a pair of unused jeans that were only occupying space in my drawers to be later relocated to my studio and eventually forgotten.

Now and then whenever these jeans and I cross paths, I usually pretend that I don't  see them and they pretend to be busy below some boxes of fabric so we can avoid each other, but this weekend when we looked at each other I thought that it was time for us to find a way to coexist, and that is how this post was born.

Apron from recycled jeans

Difficulty: Medium

Time required: 2-3 hours

Supplies needed:

1. A pair of jeans (unused, stained, maybe those jeans that you bought after Christmas that now are too big for you, etc)
2. Scissors 
3. Matching thread
4. Pins (not pictured)

Optional:

1. Sewing machine (you can also sew by hand with a needle)
2. Permanent markers
3. Glue (for those that don't enjoy sewing)- not pictured

Let's do this:

1) Start by cutting out the legs, you'll get a pair of "shorts"

Don't worry too much about doing it perfectly at this point, we'll take care of the seams later

2) Place this piece facing your table and cut right in the middle of the back of the waistband

3) Now remove the back of the jeans except for the waistband sides (these will help later to tie the apron), the remaining piece will be the bottom of our apron.

4) For the top of the apron, take one of the legs and cut from the widest part

4.1) Take the fabric that you cut out from the leg and turn around, look for the seam and cut to get a trapeze of fabric.

This will be the top of the apron:

5) Take the remaining leg and cut 3 strips of fabric.

One will be larger to be used to place the apron in the neck, and the other two will be shorter and wider to help as extensions for the waistband to tie the apron

6) Remove the pocket from the back of the jeans

7) Let's do a checkpoint, you must have 6 pieces by now: (from left to right) 1-the large strip, 2-the trapeze, 3- the pocket, 4 & 5: the shorter wider strips and 6- the main piece.

It's time to sew (or glue if you decided to avoid needles and threads)

8) Sew the pocket on top of the trapeze

9) Sew the seams of the bottom of the apron making sure that the pockets are still usable.

10) Create 3 "tubes" with the fabric strips by sewing them by the side (use the pins to secure them before sewing)

10) Sew the larger strip to the trapeze, check that there is enough room for your head and the top of the apron will be done, now attach the two wider strips to the waistband ends, both sides must be equal in size and large enough to allow you to tie the apron:

13) Put together the top and the bottom of the apron, secure them with pins before sewing to make sure that it is correctly placed

14) You're done now!

Optional Step: I decided (and encourage you) to use some colorful permanent markers to pimp the apron.

 I must be completely honest by admitting that I have not finished yet my coloring task but you can see some completed portions below where you'll notice the big difference that some color spots can make (I'll update the post once I'm done with the final result as it turned out to be such a relaxing activity that I'm taking my time to do this)

Finally please be aware that the most difficult part of this project is actually using the apron to cook (it's too cute to let it get dirty), but hey, there will always be old, unused, stained and old-fashioned jeans to create a new one, right?

Hope you liked this week's project! Let me know in the comments section if you are planning  to do your apron and how ugly were really my pants before the pimping. (Am I overreacting?)

Thanks for stopping by!

Love,

Tany