The Refashioners Challenge 2016 - Jeans!

This dress was inspired by Portia over at Makery.uk.  Portia is currently running a Refashioners contest and the theme is Jeans.  I originally heard about this contest when Lisa at Pattern and Branch won second place in last years competition. When I found out that this years theme was Jeans I was actually a bit dissapointed.  I've never really been interested in making anything out of Jeans other than smaller jeans.  But isn't that what this is about after all - making you think outside the box.  Once I saw some of the beautiful creations being made by the refashioners team on Makery I knew I had to give it a go!

So what to make????  I knew I didn't want to make accessories - I've never been a fan of denim bags or hats - I don't particularly like making home furnishings to that was out too.  Pants and shorts were out - as really any pants or shorts you make from jeans are just more jeans.....So what did that leave me - a top or a dress.  I don't wear woven tops ever, and the idea of a heavy top made out of jeans material really didn't appeal to me so that left me with Dress!

I started thinking about Jeans dresses - I've only ever owned one jeans dress - It was a figure hugging, zip up the front dress that I loved but never wore - unfortunately it was covered in ugly Nascar type badges - I once tried to unpick one of them but never managed it so despite the fact the I loved how I looked in the dress I ever wore it - It is however still sitting down in my to be refashioned pile.

So I decided I wanted something fitted.  

Which led me to thinking about a dress that I've been coveting for the last 18 years - I found this dress when looking for something to wear to one of my Engineering Balls at university.  It was a V neck at both back and front, laced up at both back and front, princess seams and the the skirt was full length and split at each seam. I didn't buy it at the time (didn't have a spare $200 to spend on one dress) but I did try to make a version of it.  The muslin that my mum and I came up with was great - unforunately I made a mistake when I chose my final fabric and it ruined the dress entirely - so I've never managed to make this dress.  Maybe now is the time.

Only problem was - I have no jeans to refashion.  I haven't bought a pair of jeans for many years now and the old ones were all thrown out long ago as I didn't see (at the time) what I could do with them.  So off to the thrift shops we went!  

I may very well have warped my kids sense of money on these trips.  I got a few weird looks for the other shoppers when my kids - at the top of their lungs - would announce "Oh man $5 for a pair of jeans - no way"  and the one consignment store that we went into that was selling jeans for $20/pair - my son scoffed mightily (and quite loudly) at that before I hurried him out of there.

But in the end I found a few pairs that I liked - at prices that I was willing to pay for something that was just going to be cut up - I specifically went looking for jeans with great details on the pockets etc that I could use to embellish my dress - this is what I ended up with.

 My favourite pair is the pair on the left that are embossed all over with a metallic design.  I knew I wanted to make a feature out of this fabric, so I started sketching.  I took my original idea and modified it to include a girdle where I could showcase the embossed fabric.  I decided I wanted to use all the back pockets to make a feature around the hem of the skirt.

Finally I noticed the pair of jeans with embroidery all over the legs (in the center of the picture above) and decided that I could use that as a center back and center front panel of my skirt with the embroidery down the bottom of the skirt.  I decided to go with the dark fabric from the pair of jeans on the right for the top of the dress and the other pairs would be used as panels in the skirt and their pockets for the hemline. (in the end I only used 5 pairs of the jeans in the final dress, plus one pair for muslin fabric).

To create the pattern I went back to my McCall's 4488 that I've used for my last three makes - I used the top front piece as is, and then cut the back and lower front pieces to get the girdle pieces that I wanted.

I ended up cutting each of the girdle pieces in half in order to get them out of the embossed fabric that I wanted to use, as that pair of jeans were a very small size and skinny jeans.

The skirt I had a few problems with.  I cut up the first pair of jeans with all the embroidery and sewed the two front pieces together tapering them at the top so that the seam lines matched those of the girdle.

And then did the same for the back.

I thought about using the existing front pockets from one of the pairs of jeans to make pockets in the skirt - I painstakingly took apart the pair of pants - took off the back pockets to reuse later and tried sewing the pants in place, but the shape of the girdle made the pocket placement a problem  and the dark patch on the back where the pocket had been looked a little out of place.

So after a day of playing around with it I gave up, flipped the pants legs upside down and tapered them from the girdle seam lines out as far as I could.  I then had to cut off the legs at the crotch line to remove the pockets/darker areas - this left the side pieces shorter the the front and back panels.

After some serious thinking I decided that instead of doing the pockets around the bottom of the hem I could just cut the pocket out still attached to the Jeans in a large enough area to fill in this gap.

 

I thought about leaving all the skirt seams split up to mid thigh, but after much  tinkering I decided I liked the skirt best with just the splits up the two front seams.

To finish the top half of the dress I decided to go with a single dart in the top rather than gathering the material like the original pattern had - unfortunately to get the dart to line up with the other existing seams, and still be large enough I ended up with a distinct point at the end of the dart.  This doesn't bother me too much in real life, but if I were to make this again I think I would make that piece with princess seams so that I could eliminate that point and the slight gaping under the arm.

I put an invisible zipper in the back of the dress.  I ended up having to hand stitch it in as I couldn't get the invisible zip foot to work with the thickness of the fabrics.  It could probably do with a hook and eye at the top, but I'd never be able to get it done up so I didn't bother

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 The top is fully lined in a navy and red cotton fabric to finish the armholes and neckline.

All seams were finished on the over locker except the hem which I just left as is to fray as it wants to.

I had fully expected to do a lot of top stitiching on this dress but in the end the only top stitching I did was on the armholes, neckline and to attach the lining under the bust.  This was just done in plain black thread so it's barely noticeable.

Overall I love this dress - The top does not fit as well I had originally hoped, but there is only so much fitting I can do - I just wanted the dress finished in the end so I'll put up with what I've got.

I love the combination of dressy - full length, V neck etc but yet casual with the denim - and even better - I do believe that I will wear this dress so it's win win all around.

 So again a big thank you to Portia and everyone else who has worked on this challenge for encouraging me to step outside my comfort zone and do something a little different!