I've seen
people going to the beach with sunshades in capes made of old jeans, or at
least it seemed like it, and I thought it was a great way of recycling old
jeans. This summer the plastic cape that came with our sunshade got ruined so I
asked at home if anyone had old jeans that would be sufficiently long to do a
cape for it. I was given an old stained jean but I only had an idea of how to
do it – sew the bottom of one leg to close it and then on the top put a cord to
close it like a bag.
Luckily I could use my mother in law’s sewing machine and
expertise in sewing… I forgot that by cutting one of the legs of the jeans I
would also have to sew a little bit on the side and that the top of the cape
would not be straight – jeans are lower on the front than on the back. I
learned how to sew with a machine and how the top of the jeans are made.
This time I
didn't take a picture of the materials used, I used a lot of the sewing stuff from
my mother in law, she has some fabulous tools that I even didn't know existed;
I really want to learn more about sewing!
Material
needed for this project:
- Old pair of jeans (you only need one of the legs provided it’s long enough, I used part of the waist band as well)
- Scissors – to cut the jeans and thread
- Sewing machine, I guess you can do it without but I was afraid the stitches would not hold with time and use (optional)
- Thread
- Pins – to hold the jeans together where you want to sew
- Cord – To place on top
- Stitches remover – I didn't know this existed it’s really practical to undo stitches (optional)
How to do it:
1. Place the sunshade in one of the
legs of your old jeans to check if it fits and the jeans are long enough
2. After having chosen big enough
jeans, with the sunshade still in the jeans, see how you have to cut the jeans
so you have enough space to sew.
3. Take the sunshade out of the jeans
and cut the leg as you determined on step 2
4. With the pins align the parts that
need sewing
5. Sew
6. Put the cord on top of the cape – I
needed to undo the top, cut, align and sew again before passing the cord.
