How to Makeover a Long Denim Skirt
- 1). Hold the long skirt up to your body, or the body of the person you're transforming the skirt for. Mark it with a pen or pencil at the appropriate length. Later, you will be adding about 10.5 inches of fabric to the skirt, so mark it much shorter than the desired final length. A typical above-the-knee skirt is 22 inches long, so you'd cut it at 11.5 inches. For below the knee, cut the skirt so it is about 15.5 inches long. This will result in a 26-inch ruffled skirt at the end. Cut the fabric at your mark. If there are pockets, trim the skirt above the pockets.
- 2). Cut a 4-inch strip from the removed fabric. Using your iron, press both the skirt and the fabric strip. Pin and then sew the 4-inch strip of fabric to the bottom of the skirt with heavy-duty thread. Use a zig-zag seam or serger to connect the two pieces.
- 3). Press the skirt with an iron after adding the fabric strip to create a finished appearance to the new seam.
- 4). Trim the old hem off the original long, denim skirt. Cut it so that there is a 4.5-inch strip of fabric with the hem. This will become the hem of your new skirt, so no hemming is needed.
- 5). Create a basting stitch across the top of this piece of fabric to create a ruffle to attach to the bottom of the skirt, using heavy-duty thread. The basting stitch runs straight through the fabric and does not double back. Use long stitches, and gather the fabric slightly as you go, creating ruffles. Because this piece was originally at the very bottom of the long A-line skirt (which gets wider toward to floor), the length will be sufficient regardless of the gathering technique used to create the ruffle.
- 6). Sew the top of the ruffled piece to the bottom of the jean skirt.
- 7). Make a decorative flower detail. Cut a 2-inch-by-36-inch piece of fabric from the denim you have left. The diameter of the original skirt should be approximately this length. If there isn't enough fabric to make one long piece, you can cut a couple of pieces, and sew them together to make one long piece. Turn it over and put the wrong sides of the fabric together in a tube-like form. Sew them together with a basting stitch and let the thread hang, unsecured. Press the tube until flat. Gather the thread by the loose end.
- 8). Attach the long, gathered tube to the front of the skirt, close to the hemline and off to one side. Exact placement is dependent on the look you want to achieve. This will become a decorative flower. Form a circle with the tube, and pin it in place as you go. Sew each layer to the skirt as you circle it around. Overlap the layers as you make the circle smaller, forming a flower. The center will be thick so you may need to fight with your machine at this point.
- 9). If you don't like the current appearance of the denim, finish the fabric by rubbing it with coarse-grit sand paper over the front and back of the skirt. This makes the denim look worn. Sanding the folds will result in a "cat's whiskers" look. To make a small hole in the denim, sand down until the material gets really thin. Don't work on the fabric too much because when you wash the skirt, your finish will become even more worn. Sand the seams and edges of the flower, too.
- 10
Soak the skirt in fabric softener. Wash and dry on high heat. Wash the skirt again if it smells like fabric softener.