"Clear Knee Mom Jeans" | Make Thrift Buy #52

Hey!

Welcome to Make Thrift Buy, the show where
YOU send in clothes that you’ve seen online

– clothes that are either expensive, mass-produced,
or the brand just doesn’t make efforts to

pay their workers a living wage – and then
I do my best to recreate them.

So today I’m doing an item that’s been
suggested by … oh… about a BILLION of

you.

Coming in at a cool $95 are these pair of
mom jeans from Topshop, that feature little

windows for your knees.

Assumedly the windows are there so that your
knees can gaze out upon the world, no longer

constricted by cruel, opaque fabrics.

#freetheknee

Anyway – the internet has been divided by
these jeans and my social media has been flooded

with requests asking me to try and recreate
them, so I’m basically just doing them so

I can go back on my twitter account without
having to scroll through pages and pages of

these damn jeans.

So let’s get started.

***

So I took myself to the thrift store – I
went to a warehouse sized-one that I know

has a lot of pairs of jeans – and the quest
for a suitable pair of mom jeans commenced.

After trying on like 30 different pairs of
jeans – I finally found my perfect pair

of mom jeans.

They fit snugly on the waist but they are
nice and loose on the legs.

The main thing you want to look for in any
pair of jeans you’re using for this project,

is that it should have lots of loose fabric
around the knee.

This project won’t really work with tight-fitting
jeans.

So while wearing the jeans, I grabbed some
chalk and I roughly measured out where I wanted

the top and the bottom of the cutouts to be.

As you can see, I’m bending my leg a lot
in this process, that’s because I wanted

to make sure my knees would be around the
middle of the cutout.

If you measure only while your legs are straight
you’ll probably make the cutouts a little

bit too high.

These jeans also had a really cute pocket
on the side down here, but unfortunately it’s

in the way of the cutouts, so I had to remove
the top part of the pocket just to make life

easier.

Then, I laid the jeans out flat on my table,
and I made the chalk lines thicker and I also

made sure they were even on both legs and
the same height as each other by using a ruler.

I then made small chalk marks exactly in the
centre of the pant legs, by measuring the

width of the pant leg and dividing this by
2, and then I drew on rectangles that were

4 and a half by 7 inches.

Of course, the length of your rectangles might
differ slightly depending on where you drew

your first chalk marks but this is a good
ball-park measurement of the size that your

cutouts should be.

Then using a pair of fabric scissors I chopped
out the fabric inside the rectangles.

Then at the corner of each rectangle, I made
small slits like this at 45 degrees, each

about half an inch long.

Then, I turned my jeans INSIDE OUT, make sure
you turn them inside out before this next

step, and I folded the edges of the cutouts
back like this.

Now, we’re going to sew these pieces down,
using some thread in a matching colour to

the jeans.

Now you can hand-stitch this, but if you’re
doing this on a sewing machine, you’ll need

to do some clever folding so that you don’t
sew through the back of the jeans as well.

So, I manipulated my jeans like this, to make
sure that I’d only be sewing through the

FRONT fabric of the jeans, and then I sewed
down this edge using a straight stitch and

a normal sewing needle.

And I repeated this for all of the raw edges
around the cutouts.

Annnnd don’t goof up and sew one of these
flaps on the wrong way like I did here – I

accidentally sewed this flap to the right
side of the jeans, and didn’t notice that

I'd done this until after I’d sewn on the
plastic – and I spent a lot of time unpicking

my stitches.

Don't do this!

ANYWAY, next I grabbed my plastic material.

This is flexible PVC plastic that I had remaining
from this plastic skirt that you guys got

me to make back in episode #33 – I think
it was originally meant to be a table protector?

– and I laid it on top of one of my cutouts,
and then I drew out a rectangle shape directly

onto the plastic, making the rectangle slightly
larger than the cutout.

And…

damn, I accidentally drew onto my fabric here,
luckily the jeans are still inside out so

it doesn’t really matter!

Anyway I finished drawing on that rectangle
and then I cut it out.

Now actually sewing the plastic onto the inside
of the cutouts is a little bit tricky and

took me a while to work out, because there’s
a lot of fabric that you DON’T want to sew

through in the way!

If you just put this straight on your sewing
machine now you will have a lot of difficultly.

So what I’m going to do next is to open
up one of the side seams on this pant leg,

just from here to here, because this will
give me easy access to the cutout and make

it about 100 times easier to sew the plastic
on.

When I’d done that, I made sure that the
plastic was in place over the cutout, and

then I pinned it on around the edges, making
sure that I’d only pinned it to the front

layer of the jeans, not the back, and then
I sewed the plastic on using a straight stitch

like this.

Now, sewing with PVC plastic is a little bit
difficult – it kept getting a little bit

stuck on my sewing machine’s feeding mechanism
– but I didn’t need to use any special

sewing tools or sewing feet, I simply helped
feed the fabrics through by pulling on it

a little bit, using my hands as I sewed.

Now once that plastic was sewn on around all
4 edges of the cutout, I sewed the side-seams

of the jeans back up and then I cut off the
excess edges around the plastic, leaving about

half an inch next to the stitches that I just
made.

Finally, I wanted to cover up the edges of
the plastic so they wouldn’t dig into my

legs, so using those denim scraps that I cut
out from the knees of these jeans earlier,

I cut these into strips, brushed some fabric
glue on the edges of the plastic, and then

I placed the strip of fabric down over the
plastic edge, covering it entirely.

And I did this at both the top and the bottom
of the cutouts; I didn’t worry about the

sides because they weren’t ever going to
touch my legs, but you could do this if you

wanted to.

Finally, remember that cute leg pocket that
I cut off before?

I sewed the top of the pocket back in place
– which would have been a lot easier if

I’d done this before I sewed the side seams
back up, but I still managed to sew it on

using a needle and some thread – and then
I was done!

So, how did it turn out?

How did I go?

[Electronic dance music plays]

Look, I did try really hard to film this seriously
for you guys, but…

[singing]: Boop!

Boop boop boop boop boop boop boop!
[laughs]

It's so hard to be serious filming these!

I mean, knees are really weird!

And they're just - they're just so THERE,
like, WHAT ARE THEY DOING THERE?!

[Whispering]: What are knees?

Yeah, I think this episode has broken me.

A little bit.

It definitely initiated an existential crisis
about the meaning of knees.

[Sound of knees slapping up against the plastic]

Seriously I’ve looked at my knees so much
now, both filming and editing this video,

that I don’t really feel like they’re
a normal body part anymore.

Alright so – it worked!

And…

I have to admit…

I actually quite like them.

Sure, there’s some definite cons – the
main one being that they’re… really not

comfortable.

Whenever I bend my knees – like, every second
while I'm walking – my knees bump up against

and stick to the rigid plastic.

I am literally sitting like this right now
because I don't want the plastic to touch

my knees! [laughs]
Also, on a hot day, your sweaty knees will

produce a lot of condensation that'll be very
visible and show up on these windows.

I just thought of another one if you're someone
who occasionally shaves their legs like I

do, you can't just forgo shaving in the winter
if you're going to wear these!

Oh, I just thought of another one, if you're
pale, like I am, you're going to have to put

sunscreen on your knees before you go out
because this is not UV protective - unless

you want rectangle burn lines on your legs.

Man, so many of the clothes I make on Make
Thrift Buy give you weird tan lines.

But there’s some pros, as well, like...

You can put stickers on them!

And change the stickers up!

You can also grab a whiteboard marker and
write down things that you have to remember!

Your knees won't get wet in the rain...

They're certainly a conversation starter.

As if someone isn't going to mention these
weird-ass jeans.

Also - fashion.

I guess that's a pro.

For some people.

Anyway, in conclusion, these jeans are a:

[scissor snipping, zipper sound effect]

Thrift a pair of jeans, and make these for
yourself.

Mine came in at about $5 total if you include
the plastic material and thread I used.

So I hope this video either helps, or amuses
you, and I’ll see you all in my next video.

Bye!

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Bye!