Make do and Mend Monday - Upcycled Denim Skirt

I'm a woman of the large-thighed variety, so this is an unfortunate side-effect of many of my trousers:

Rather than try to patch them up or throw them away I decided to make a skirt out of these jeans.  I can't remember where I saw the trousers-into-skirt thing, but no doubt there are hundreds of tutorials online.  I made my little upcycling project the basis of a couple of my sewing lessons.

First step was to cut the jeans to the length of skirt that I wanted and then to cut down the inside leg seams.

Then I took the bottoms that I'd cut off and cut a piece to match the gap, which I then pinned to the wrong side of the skirt. The piece was then top-stitched in place. Lastly, I added a length of colourful fabric to the hem to brighten the skirt up a bit. Ta dah!

Not a great set of instructions or photos I know, but I just wanted to show you what I did.

Make Do and Mend Monday - Scratch Mittens

As projects go this isn't going to set the sewing world alight, but I'm pleased with these scratch mittens that I made for baby boy who has been savaging his poor little face recently.  Partly because I actually finished them (I have a tendency to start projects and not finish) and partly because I've recycled an old T-shirt.

I made them from the sleeves, very simply. Cut out the mitten shapes to the right size, using the hemmed edge for the cuffs, sew the two sides with wrong sides together (I sewed them by hand, so a machine would make even faster work of them), whip stitch (or zigzag) over the raw edges to prevent fraying, turn inside out, et voila! One pair of scratch mittens.

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