Home » So Crafty

Recycled Used Jeans - Recycle Your Old Jeans Into Designer Fashion Garments, Accessories And Home Dec Items

by SewingSuccess

Last updated: 04/28/2012
35 Comments

64 Like

Like 64

Pin It

Recyle Your Old Jeans Into Designer Fashion Garments, Accessories And Home Dec Items

Never, ever thow away a pair of old worn out jeans. It is truly amazing what you can create out of them. It is so much fun to recycle your favorite jeans into another favorite item. The ideas are endless.

So why not recycle your old denim jeans into skirts, bags, jackets, pillows, quilts, numerous accessories and crafts. I've even seen a formal gown made from recycled jeans. You are the designer. Have fun with recycling jeans.

Add a tee hoodie to go with your jeans skirt. See how to makeover your favorite tee shirt into a hoodie in this sewing course ebook, "Tee Hoodies".

The goal for this lens is to make it a great resource for ideas to help inspire you to create something special out of recycled used jeans, tees, sweatshirts and other garments.

A portion of the proceeds from this lens is donated to cancer research. Recycle your jeans and fight cancer at the same time. How cool is that?

PS: For the most darling recycled kids jeans plus lots of creative ideas to sew kids boutique clothing, your have to check out "You Can Make This!"

What Are Jeans

Jeans are trousers traditionally made from denim, but may also be made from a variety of fabrics including cotton and corduroy. Originally work clothes, they became popular among teenagers starting in the 1950s. Historic brands include Levi's and Wrangler. Today Jeans are a very popular form of casual dress around the world and come in many styles and colors.

History Of Jeans

History

The earliest known pre-cursor for jeans is the Indian export of a thick cotton cloth, in the 16th century, known as dungaree. Dyed in indigo, it was sold near the Dongarii Fort near Mumbai. Sailors cut it to suit them. [1]

Jeans were first created in Genoa, Italy when the city was an independent republic and a naval power. The first were made for the Genoese Navy because it required all-purpose trousers for its sailors that could be worn wet or dry, and whose legs could easily be rolled up to wear while swabbing the deck. These jeans would be laundered by dragging them in large mesh nets behind the ship, and the sea water would bleach them white.

The first denim came from Nîmes, France, hence de Nimes, the name of the fabric. The French bleu de Gênes, from the Italian blu di Genova, literally the "blue of Genoa" dye of their fabric, is the root of the names for these trousers, "jeans" and "blue jeans", today.

Riveted Jeans

In the 1850s, Levi Strauss, a German dry goods merchant living in San Francisco, was selling blue jeans under the "Levi's" name to the mining communities of California. One of Strauss's customers was Jacob Davis, a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth from the Levi Strauss & Co wholesale house. After one of Davis's customers kept purchasing cloth to reinforce torn trousers, he had an idea to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of strain, such as on the pocket corners and at the base of the button fly.

Davis did not have the required money to purchase a patent, so he wrote to Strauss suggesting that they both go into business together. After Strauss accepted Davis's offer, on May 20, 1873, the two men received patent #139,121, a patent for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings", from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Jeans In Popular Culture

Initially blue jeans were simply sturdy trousers worn by workers especially in the factories during World War II. During this period men's jeans had the zipper down the front whereas women's jeans had the zipper down the right side. By the 1960s both men's and women's jeans had the zipper down the front.

In the United States during the 1950s, wearing of blue jeans by teenagers and young adults became symbolic of mild protest against conformity. This was considered by some adults as disruptive; for example, some movie theaters and restaurants refused to admit patrons who wore blue jeans.

During the 1960s the wearing of blue jeans became more acceptable and by the 1970s had become a general fashion in the United States, at least for informal wear.

Notably, in the mid-1950s the denim and textiles industry was revolutionized by the introduction of the stone-washing technique by GWG (Great Western Garment).

Entrepreneur, importer and noted eccentric, Donald Freeland of Edmonton, Alberta pioneered the method which helped to bring denim to a larger and more versatile market. Denim suddenly became an attractive product for all age groups and Freeland became one of the most important innovators in the history of denim and denim products.

It should be noted, also, that Freeland contributed to a variety of other denim textile developments throughout his career with Great Western Garments (GWG)

Acceptance of jeans continued through the 1980s and 1990s to the point where jeans are now a wardrobe staple, with the average North American owning seven pairs.

Being imported American products, especially in the case of the Soviet Union which restricted hard currency imports, jeans were somewhat expensive. In Spain they are known as vaqueros or "cowboys" and in Chinese, jeans are known as niuzaiku, literally, "cowboy pants" (trousers), indicating their association with the American West, cowboy culture, and outdoors work.

Jeans can be worn very loose in a manner that completely conceals the shape of the wearer's lower body, or they can be snugly fitting and accentuate the body.

Historic photographs indicate that in the decades before they became a staple of fashion, jeans generally fit quite loosely, much like a pair of bib overalls without the bib. Indeed, until 1960, Levi Strauss denominated its flagship product "waist overalls" rather than "jeans".

Fits And Types Of Jeans

Fits

Fits of jeans are determined by current styles, gender, and by the manufacturer. Here are some of the fits produced for jeans:

Jeans for men have a longer rise and zipper, where as women have a shorter rise and zipper.

Ankle jeans
Loose jeans
Straight jeans
Boot cut
Baggy
Skinny jeans
Phat pants
Slim Fit
Overalls
Boy Cut or Boyfriend - women
Bell Bottom/Flares
Saggy
Carpenter jeans
Original jeans
Classic
Wide Leg
Rises in jeans (the distance from the crotch to the waistband) range from high-waisted to superlow-rise.

Types

Besides trousers, denim can also be made into:

Overalls
Shorts
Skorts
Dresses
Denim skirts
Shirts
Jackets
Bags
Capris
Cut offs
Daisy Dukes

Sewing Success Sewing Blog

This sewing blog offers free sewing projects, tips and techniques to help you achieve sewing success.

Recycled Used Jeans - Recycle Your Old Jeans Into Designer Fashion Garments, Accessories And Home Dec Items

Recyle Your Old Jeans Into Designer Fashion Garments, Accessories And Home Dec Items

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

What Are Jeans

History Of Jeans

Jeans In Popular Culture

Fits And Types Of Jeans

Sewing Success Sewing Blog

Links To Recycled Jeans Projects

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

Please pick your widget size and display. Then click "Make the Widget" to get the code that's just right for you.

Voila! Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

Links To Repair Your Jeans

Things You Really Need To Know About What Jeans You Wear

These tips will help you select what jeans you should wear and why.

Books To Help You Recycle Clothing

1

2

3

4