I’ve made a new dress using a bunch of my kids’ old jeans that I have 
been saving for this very purpose… and please note; yes, I am wearing denim shoes that I also made from old jeans, hehehe. Just adding to the overall,terribly cohesive, jeans, jeans, jeans and yet more jeans look that I’ve got going on here. Jeans from head to toe!! even though I’m not actually wearing any jeans, haha. Long term readers may remember these shoes from when I made them a couple of years ago… I’ve worn them a lot actually. They seem to go with everything!
The Refashioners’ challenge this year was to make a garment using old jeans … which is fabulous timing for me! one of my imagined versions for this pattern has always been a jeans refashion and so the challenge just roused me from merely daydreaming about it and into action. I’m a happy little refashioner from way back.. anyone remember Wardrobe Refashion? aaaah, I was a pretty active participant and was a little sad when it all wound down. But still keeping up with that lifelong pledge!
Pattern; Vogue 1316. this is the fourth version of the pattern I have made and actually the second I’ve made from old jeans, come to think of it! My first version was made using four pairs of different coloured corduroy jeans. See also my second, blue version, and my third, autumn version. I still have several more plans for this pattern… but maybe I should wait before bringing any more to fruition; I now have three pairs currently rotating in my wardrobe, and a fourth might be just stretching credibility… just a bit! It’s quite an eye-catching and distinctive design, over all. This new one is pretty summer-y though, and I probably won’t be wearing it until things warm up around here a bit.
Materials; obviously, all blue denim jeans. I used three pairs of children’s jeans, one pair of child’s long shorts and one pair of adult jeans. The adult jeans turned out to be necessary when I realised that the full-length panels at the back would look pretty terrible if pieced at the waist; it’s a very much piecemeal kind of a design anyway, and to have that nice long smooth length of fabric at the back is just a nice visual anchor in amongst all that busy patchworking, in my opinion. I decided it would be best to retain it; fortunately I had one pair of Craig’s old jeans in my refashioning bag and could cut the long back pieces from those.
My vision for this dress has always been to have lots of the existing jeans’ details retained in it, like the pockets with their decorative top-stitching, the coin pockets and belt loops and so forth; HOWEVER when it came down to it I retained very little of all that! The design was just so… busy; I ended up removing a lot of the little details I was going to put in. There’s still plenty of the jeans bits and pieces left in, I reckon just the right amount to keep that definite “jeans flavour” to it. There are a few original topstitched seams here and there, and the portion of a pocket left on the bodice. I also added tonnes of new topstitching in terracotta upholstery thread, in fact every seam is topstitched down in some cases doubly so.
Something I’ve managed to forget to blog about each time I’ve written about this dress… like all Vogue patterns, for a fitted design it’s a little blouse-y in the boob-al region for my figure; however the princess seamed bodice makes this a very easy fix. I simply pin and stitch to shave a bit off the inner curve of the central bodice piece (above), and this solves the problem for me. A very very easy small bust adjustment, and one I usually end up using for pretty much every fitted Vogue bodice with princess-seaming. I don’t have the same issues with Burda, but always with Vogue. I guess their “blocks” are a little different.
The back vent (above) is topstitched in navy blue thread, rather than the terracotta. Trust me, it just looked better this way. I also used an navy blue invisible zip This was the only new thing I bought for the dress! The pockets (below) are lined with scraps of pretty floral voile… this was leftover from a dress that Cassie made for herself. We bought the fabric together in Tokyo during our very first visit there in 2011, when we met Yoshimi and Novita for a fabric shopping day out, Aaaah, yet more happy memories!
One pair of jeans, the very pale blue pair, was practically threadbare in places, but I still really wanted to have that pale blue as part of the lovely indigo-y mix… these pieces I reinforced with lightweight iron-on interfacing to the back to stabilise and strengthen these areas (below). Don’t want my new dress ripping in its first wear now, do I?!
For the bottom hem, I kept the original jeans’ hems in every piece (below). This took a little bit of careful pattern placement, but I’m so happy with how it looks! Yes, it’s a bit torn and worn in places, but that’s the honest history of the fabrics, right there. The dress is a refashion, and proud of it. The other little bit of history that I love about it is that you can just make out faint pink stains on one of the denims… this was a pair of jeans that Tim wore while painting once, and those paint stains never did come out despite many washes! They are still there, and I LOVE them. Oh, I’m a sentimental old thing, and happily so, too 
Details:
Dress; Vogue 1316, made from old jeans, see my original review of this pattern here
Shoes; made by me from old jeans and hand-carved wooden bases, details here
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