Make Do & Mend: Salvaging Flared Denim Jeans.

Oh em gee you guys look at these super cute denim shorts I bought!

Pah, no, I made these.

I bought these horrendous flared jeans many years ago, before I had any awareness of style or my body shape. 

I am still around 5"3, my derriere remains sizeable, and since these jeans do nothing to flatter these two features of mine, they were resigned right to the back of my wardrobe, deep, deep down. I don't even want to think what other ghastly things are back there.

So the day came that I fancied myself some denim shorts, but I'll be damned if I'm paying £30 to have my bum cheeks hanging out of some piece of fabric, it doesn't look good on even the most beautiful of back sides, and frankly, no one needs to see that. (What happened to dressing to look good and decent I ask you?)

Here's the how-to.

1. Put on your ugly jeans, and mark where you want to cut them off with a pen or safety pin (if you go for the latter you won't stain your jeans!) I went for a longer length than I wanted, so I could err on the side of caution if things went wrong, and leave a little length for some sort of hemline if I wanted to roll up the ends. Leave maybe an extra inch or two.

2. Cut off the jeans using SHARP scissors. Make small snips, and angle upwards to make a "V" with both legs. The small snips will give you something to shred if you want a cut-off look hem, but if you want a cleaner edge to roll-up and press use bigger snips. The V-shape should, in theory, make the jeans look more flattering when you put them on again.

Save the bits you cut off so you can practise how to distress the denim or how it'll react to bleach and dye if that's what you're planning on doing. I wanted to make distressed patches on mine, and here's how I did it.

1. Make incisions spaced approx 1cm away from each other, any further apart and you'll have a tight weave to fight against.

2. Quick anatomy of denim: Running lengthways through the denim are blue strands, this is what colours your jeans. Running at 90 degree angles to these strands are white elastic threads: these are the ones we want to expose. Looking at the cut edge of your incision, use a pair of tweezers to find a blue strand, single him out, and pull it out. Lather, rinse, repeat until you've finished that patch, and move on.

3. What I neglected to photograph is what you do at the tops and tails of your distressed patches. To make the distress look a little more finished, flip over the material so you are looking at the wrong side. At the top and bottom, find a white thread, and pull it away from the denim. It should still remain connected to your denim, and when you flip it over, it'll frame the distressed patch with a tufty, frayed bit of denim

4. Still playing with the spare material, practise how you want to finish the hem of your hot pants. I went for a frayed look, and got that by tugging on the exposed white strands at the bottom of the denim. I then trimmed them down on my shorts so I wouldn't have white strands tickling my knees or anything.
You might want to turn up the bottom two or three times and then iron over the fabric to make a straight, crisp hem, completely stitch free.

When you're confident with what you want to do with your shorts, go ahead and do it!