How I Made Some Old Jeans New(ish)

I know I allowed myself a pair or two of new jeans this year, but I never got around to buying any.

Somehow it still seems wrong, at least until I feel like I'm at a size I can live with.

In the meantime, I have to either buy used or work with what I've got, which is proving to be more annoying than I thought as my weight fluctuates.

At the moment, none of the pants I own are fitting properly. I'm smaller than I was a year ago, but larger than I was 6 months ago, and the one pair of "in between" jeans I was wearing suddenly grew a grease spot on my way to work one day.

How embarrassing.

I do, however, have one pair of pants that fit me really well at the moment, except for one thing -
the length.

Almost every pair of pants I own is too long, and I just wear them anyway. For some reason, probably because I spent a little extra dough on them (although never full price, of course!), I had these Joe's hemmed.

Well, the seamstress shortened them a little too much, and since then I've been self-conscious about the length. Plus they are flared, which is not really on trend at the moment. Put the two together, and what have you got?

Silly pants:

These pants look ridiculous!

Ok, so maybe they're not completely terrible. But I don't care what you think.

I didn't like them. So I barely wore them.

But suddenly they were the only pants that fit properly in every other way, so I decided to try and make them work by tapering them into straight-legged ankle pants, which I find much more appealing and flattering.

I started by estimating where a straight leg would lie, pinning, and trying on.

I decided the best approach would be to make the alterations to the inseam, since there was already topstitching there that I could mimic and use to my advantage (I also think there's nothing worse than obvious alterations to jeans - maybe that's just me again).

Left leg folded and pinned to test for fit.

Once I had determined this would actually work, I started ripping out the seams.

Seam rippin' with my industrial tool - I had to be careful not to rip through the fabric.

I went up to the mid thigh - this way I could keep some of the original stitching, and blend in my alterations to keep the original integrity of the jeans.

Removing the seam to mid-thigh.

Goodbye, flares...

I trimmed the excess thread from the original surge and started pinning in place to stitch.

One leg down, one to go!

On to the sewing!

Using Coats and Clark Dual Duty XP Heavy thread in Navy and a size 16 needle, I topstitched the inseam. I started at the top rather than at the ankle, to ensure a smooth transition from the factory seam to my new one. This was a little tricky because it meant bunching the entire leg around my tiny sewing machine as I went.

Getting situated.

I used the rut from the original stitching as my guide as I worked my way down.

Following the rut.

Phew! The second leg went a lot faster than the first one.

Finished leg sproinging free.

And voila! I now have a pair of non-dorky pants that fit!

Me in less-dorky pants.

I did this all in a couple of hours for the cost of the spool of thread - less than $3.

Have you ever gone "shopping" in your own closet? Find anything good??