My Project for the Refashioners 2016 challenge

What a great idea to reuse jeans in this way! I don't know about you but I had load's of jeans in my house desperate for re-use! I flitted around my ideas but finally decided on a bardot style off the shoulder top.

I looked around on pintrest and found Fabric Godmothers tutorial and thought this was a great starting point.

I started by making the darker jeans one big piece of fabric, mostly because at the beginning I was going to make a dress but I didn't have a big enough piece. This piece then became the top frill of my bardot top.

I then made sure I had enough of the lighter jeans. Now this pair of jeans were bought with 'designer' fraying already put in, which just got bigger and bigger of a hole! So I had to repair these holes before I could use it as the main bodice to my top and not expose myself too much! Once that was done I cut two rectangles one 40cm deep and one 20cm deep.

I used the jeans hem for the bottom of the bodice and I zigzagged in contracting cream thread for the frill which I think gives it a nice finish. One I had made two tubes of fabric, I attached them using the wonderful tutorial above.
I only had thick elastic in, and I'm impatient to wait to go to a shop, so I pushed that through the frill's tube opening I had made. Whilst we are on the subject of threading elastic through.. there HAS to be an easier way to do this?! this is what took me most of the time!tip and tricks most welcome please!

When I first put this top on my husband laughed at my soo much as I had tried it on over my t-shirt and put the frills on top of my shoulders like a vest top, once I rearranged it looked much better (shame about my tan lines though!)

There are so many great adaptations of using jeans to make something else so please check out the hashtag #therefashioners2016 and #jeanius and see what everyone has been making. I love how everyone has used it so different and I especially love the negative space removing the pocket gives you like on my shoulder details.