An upcycled denim skirt

I remember a few years ago there was a trend for turning old jeans into denim skirts. But they always had raw edges, and looked just a bit like skirt versions of cut off jean shorts.

Inevitably, though, we have old jeans. I have stack of them: ones I've gone through the knees of (or the bottom of), ones that have faded too much, or been trodden down at the heel, ones that people have given me to make stuff out of. So what to do with them all? Well, denim skirts, obviously.

You cut the legs off to the length you roughly want, unpick the inside leg seam, patch them over and sew the front pieces together, and the back pieces. I put in a little triangle from the back of the thigh so it's not too short or tight.

Then, to stop it having a raw edge, sew bias tape around the bottom. I did one in navy for a colour averse friend, and ones in orange and dark red for me. All in all, less than an hours work for a new skirt. Result.

Resolutions

Oh dear, another year has been and gone. To be fair, it's been busy: finished PhD; had loft converted; recarpetted house; went camping with all 3 children lots of times; had PhD viva; Christmas...

I wasn't going to make New Years Resolutions. I never find January a very inspiring time for new starts. Too cold. Too dark. Too miserable. But, chatting with friends at a birthday party yesterday, it seemed that lots of them had made resolutions, resolutions that I could join in on: to craft more. So that's number one. Number two is to blog about it more. And whilst I'm at it, there's a number three. Number three is a topical one. This year is the bicentenary of Dickens' birth. I've read a couple of his books, but thought I would try and read a few more this year. And then one a year from now on. Hopefully that's manageable.

So, in the interest of reporting what I've done, I made a chicken. I actually made it before Christmas, for Mr Kinkatink's present. Pattern in the Guardian. One of these days I'll remember how to write links nicely. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/07/chicken-doorstop-easter-present-how-to-make

Here she is: