DIY DENIM SKIRT | Make Thrift Buy #46

Hello!

Welcome to Make Thrift Buy, the show where
YOU send in cool clothes & accessories that

you’ve found on the internet and then I
do my best to recreate them!

Today’s challenge was sent in by Syeda who
wanted me to try and recreate this skirt from

Abercrombie & Fitch.

Now this item’s existence makes me SO so
angry - BECAUSE it’s meant to look like

a DIY, like something that you’ve made for
yourself… except that it’s not.

Instead you pay $68 + shipping for the privilege
of owning a skirt that looks like it's been

upcycled from a pair of jeans.

My BRAIN.

Plus it’s probably made in sweatshop-like
conditions . God I hate the fashion world

sometimes.

So, bringing this full-circle, today we're
actually going to try and make this for ourselves,

actually using an old pair of jeans and upcycling
them.

So let's get started.

So here is the pair of jeans that I will be
upcycling – and they were $4 from the thrift

store.

You can generally find old jeans in-abundance
at charity stores and thrift stores – especially

baggy bootcut jeans like these ones here.

So I measured approximately how long I wanted
the skirt to be, added a couple of inches

to this measurement to be on the safe side,
and then I chopped off the legs at this point.

The next thing that I did was to remove the
stitches, which is also called “seam ripping”,

all around the crotch and the inner legs.

The easiest way to rip seams is to get a pair
of small, sharp embroidery scissors, and,

turning the jeans inside out, find those serged
seams that look like this – so the serged

seams where there’s loops along the top
with two horizontal threads running across

these loops.

The threads that you want to cut through are
these horizontal ones, cutting approximately

every 4th or 5th thread or so.

Once I’d cut through those threads all the
way around the inner leg, I could quickly

and simply pull the seams apart, like this!

Next I also seam-ripped up the crotch seam
to just below the zipper.

I did the same thing on the back of the jeans,
ripping the seam approximately the same length

that I did on the front.

Then, I took this front crotch flap – okay,
I am aware that this description is sounding

more like an anatomy lesson than anything
else but bear with me – I took the front

crotch… “section”… and I overlapped
it onto the other side of the jeans, making

sure that the two were laying flat.

Then I stuck some pins through these overlapping
pieces, to hold them together, and with some

yellow thread that matched the thread already
in use on the jeans, I sewed the two pieces

together like this.

To sew the pieces together I used a denim
needle, which is slightly sturdier, thicker

and stronger than a regular sewing needle,
and I also used a “triple stitch”.

A triple stitch is basically a straight stitch
that is thicker and provides more reinforcement

than a regular straight stitch.

Then I repeated the exact same thing on the
back of the jeans.

When this was done, I tried the skirt on to
see how it fit.

Now because the original jeans were quite
baggy, I actually wanted to take in the sides

of the skirt a little bit so that it didn’t
flare out so much.

So, to do this, I drew two marks on either
side of the point that’s just underneath

where my hips end.

Then on both sides of the skirt I pinched
the fabric to make the skirt tighter and reduce

that flare – without stretching the triangle
in the middle, because that needs to remain

flat - otherwise everything will go wrong
here.

Then, at the places where I had pinched the
fabric, I drew two small marks with chalk,

and then I joined these two marks with that
below-hip mark in a triangle like this.

Using a pair of scissors, I then cut up that
side seam and I pulled it open up to the top

of the triangle.

Then, with the skirt inside out, and the fabric
right-sides together, I matched up the old

side seams.

And then, I duplicated the chalk line from
the front of the fabric onto the inside.

I put pins through both layers and then I
sewed down here, using a straight stitch,

to make my new side seam.

And I repeated this on the other side of the
skirt.

Once the new side seams were sewn together,
and I’d tried on the skirt again to make

sure that I was happy with it, I cut the excess
fabric away from the new seam like this.

Now, demin will fray the first time that you
wash it but then it will STOP fraying, it’s

like magic, so don’t worry about the raw
edges of the denim inside the skirt here.

So this is my new side seam, and to finish
it off I pressed the seam to one side and

I top-stitched along one side of the seam,
like this.

The last step was to fill in the gaps between
the legs, which I did by grabbing a piece

of the leg that I had cut off in the first
step, laying it flat underneath the triangle,

pinning it in place, like this, and then sewing
it to the front pieces of the new skirt.

This time I used a blue thread which blended
into the colour of the jeans, and I also used

a normal straight stitch.

Then I cut off the excess fabric inside the
skirt, and I repeated the same thing to the

back of the skirt!

When that was done, I tried the skirt on,
and I shortened it to the length that I wanted

by drawing a slightly curved line across the
bottom of the skirt, like this.

Then, I cut straight across this line using
a normal pair of fabric scissors.

Annnnd, well the original skirt wasn’t hemmed
either, so I’m going to be leaving the bottom

edge raw as well!

So, now I’m sure you all want to know…
how did I go?

[Music plays]

Woo hoo!

Those old, unflattering pair of jeans is now
this super cute denim skirt.

And, it only cost me $4.

Get out of here, Abercrombie and Fitch.

This is the real deal.

My conclusion is: [Scissor snipping and zipper
sound effect]

Thrift a pair of old denim jeans and make
this for yourself.

Before you all go, I want to tell you something
very exciting – I launched my new website

yesterday!

It’s basically a place where you can go
and find out about what me and my community

are doing, but the part of it that I’m most
proud of is this page here: The Beginner’s

Sewing Resource!

It’s full of all the important stuff you
need to know if you’re just starting out

sewing and trying to make your own clothes,
and even if you’ve been sewing for a while

I recommend checking it out because you'll
probably still find some useful information

on there!

It’s got both tutorials from me and from
all my favourite sewists - sewers - sewists?

from around the internet.

It’s at annikavictoria.com, so go check
it out and let me know what you think!

Anyway, that’s it from me!

Thank you for watching and I’ll see you
all next time.

Bye!

Thank you to all of my supporters on Patreon
for making these videos possible.

To become my patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/annikavictoria!