creative permie uses for old jeans

I make quilts out of old jeans. But there are many scraps leftover even after that. So one year I made a quiet book for 'Shh!' moments in our lives. Here are the jeans-specific pages. It's lasted through 12 years of tiny hand play so far

I made a farm apron out of a friend's holey jeans. The full thread is here: farm apron
Here's a picture taken before a few alterations were made to make it fit my small frame better. I love the big, functional pockets!

Well, this isn't a sewing angle at all. If I received a bunch of dead jeans that had no other use, I would stuff the legs with sand/gravel, zap the ends together with pallet wood and drywall screws, and use them as "deadmen" -- weights that act as a spring weight to maintain tension when taking down trees. Usually danger trees, and I'm usually taking them down myself, and I'm a careful SOB in those situations.

I use older jeans to patch younger jeans… no jean art.

When he was 9 my son took some of the jeans that had been cut for patches and asked if he could have them… he cut out the back pockets and tacked them to his wall… a place for treasure.

Made a sling to carry firewood inside. Used the handles from an old IKEA bag.

I also made an advent calendar out of jeans last year.

Rebekah, I love the nativity calendar.  Those are some lucky kids at your house!

Will you use it every year?  Placing a changing set of pieces and activities as they mature and their interests change?

🤯😲  The level of skills, knowledge, and creativity at Permies makes me feel so unworthy of being here.  You are all seriously amazing and talented!  All I know to do with material is donate it to a local senior center for the ladies to make quilts and things out of it for other people.  It helps those they donate the items to as well as assuring the seniors that they're still useful and needed.  You folks make me want to upgrade my skills!

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Rebekah, I love the nativity calendar.  Those are some lucky kids at your house!

Will you use it every year?  Placing a changing set of pieces and activities as they mature and their interests change?

Hey thekla! So far, no. Because I have 6 kids, they haven't all outgrown them yet. Not sure we ever outgrow the nativity anyways? All the activities are simplle traditions, like male cookies and share them with neighbors, or play horseshoes, or sing a Christmas Carol. None of them have seemed too young yet.

At the very end....I cut mine up into squares, along with any other scraps of cotton fabric, and they end up at the humanure bucket for toilet paper, and eventually to compost and soil!

Emmett Ray wrote:🤯😲  The level of skills, knowledge, and creativity at Permies makes me feel so unworthy of being here.  

The nifty thing about sewing, is you can start learning any where, any time, with very little money outlay. Mending is great, because you already own the clothing. Needles and thread can occasionally be found at second hand or charity shops, but you do need quality scissors for cutting fabric.

If you check out the SkIP textile BB's, the early mending ones have "preselected by permies" videos that can teach you the basics. The niftiest part is that you don't have to have a homestead to start working on this, and many other skills.
https://permies.com/wiki/skip-pep-bb
https://permies.com/f/408/pep-textiles

Do we *all* need to know a little??? I admit I'm biased. This very old story... My sister and a friend had travelled to Cape Breton Island for a holiday camping trip in our early 20's. We stopped at a Provincial Camp Site for the night after traveling through a storm. We weren't sure what the weather would do, so we took our food to cook in the "cook shelter" provided. There was a fellow with needle and thread mending his tent. The storm had been bad enough to rip part of it, and he was bike camping so he didn't even have a car to retreat to. It was a good exposure to the need to prepare and the benefit of learning at least basic fix-it skills of all sorts.

Pictures of things people have done with old jeans.

Almost no sew apron

Jay Angler wrote:The nifty thing about sewing, is you can start learning any where, any time, with very little money outlay. Mending is great, because you already own the clothing. Needles and thread can occasionally be found at second hand or charity shops, but you do need quality scissors for cutting fabric.

Do we *all* need to know a little??? I admit I'm biased.

Sewing/Mending by hand is something I can do.  It's the sewing machine stuff that confounds me!  And I agree that we all can't be masters at everything we put our hands to, but we can all know a little.  But, I know me.  If I really got into sewing, quilting would take over my life.  I'm fascinated by quilts.  There are two things I'd like to accomplish by hand.  A hand sewn quilt and beautiful cross stitch picture.

In other posts, I've said that I cared for senior citizens my entire life.  Even in the apartment complex I live in now, I cared for several elderly that were living on their own and didn't have any family nearby.  I wanted them to be able to maintain their independence for as long as possible.  Well, the last person I got to care for lived across the hall from me.  Catherine.  She moved into the building the day it opened in 1972 until she passed away at 96, almost two years ago now.   Her family wasn't close and I ended up going through her belongings for them to sort the things they'd want to go through from the stuff they wouldn't.  Catherine had brand new stuff from decades ago!  If I was living in a house permanently, I would have taken a lot of it because the family didn't want it.  But, one thing I couldn't pass up were these Wiss Pinking Shears.  Sadly, there isn't a date to be found on them but, as you can see from the packaging, they're quite old - yet in brand new condition!  I figured I'd eventually find someone who loves to sew that would enjoy them.  Once I move, I wanted to find a local woman who sews and hire her to make a few things for me and I could give her these shears.  (I prefer homemade items to store bought any day.)

Hubby bought some battery pruners. They're great to use, but awkward to carry around.

I've got old jeans to fix that problem!

Jeans do seem to be my go-to material these days. I actually made this purse some time ago. My existing fanny pack was dying and my cell phone didn't fit into it either. Most of my city clothes don't have pockets large enough for my phone, so I *really* needed a purse which I could either strap around my waist or wear across my chest over one shoulder. It had to be deep enough to take a phone that is 6 1/4 inches tall.



It has several zippered pouches. Parts I was able to machine sew, but it involved a bunch of hand stitching as well.

My friend didn't think I should have used the red zipper, but I quite like the burst of colour. Then again, when it comes to fashion sense, I march to a different drummer!

Jean shorts!

My husband constantly wears jeans at the knees, and over the years I've put in some fun-colored patches. When those keep failing, he handed them to me for crafting. I spent lots of time looking up all kinds of cutesy ideas on the internet (before I knew of Permies, I could have just come here hehe), and I was planning a rug once I got many more pairs... One day he just grabbed the jeans and scissors, and immediately made jean shorts. He had been wanting more work shorts that could dirty up. I have to say, I was stupefied at the simplicity and elegance : )

We’ve always called those “cut offs”.

A regular part of every body’s wardrobe.

I made a pair not long ago, and found they were no good for the amount of kneeling I do these days.

Some where I saw a pair of pants made entirely out of jeans back pockets.

I thought it was here.

There are a lot of creative ideas here.

Anne Miller wrote:Some where I saw a pair of pants made entirely out of jeans back pockets.

Actually it was front and back pockets and it was in our pocket thread here:
https://permies.com/t/40/151350/fashioned-substitute-lack-women-pockets#3989749

Totally cool, but it would have been *really* hard to sew!

Thanks, those pants are cool.

Clever…

🤣🤣🤣❤️❤️❤️

That’s WILD I am going to try it!

good for growing prizewinning parsnips perhaps, or dioscorea tubers!