Jeans Skirt

Once upon a time, Sarah Rose had these cute-as-a-button pants that I would have her wear all the time.  They were almost bellbottom-like, with seams down the front middle of each leg and fake pockets on the front that had great big dark blue buttons.  I say "once upon a time" because, as children have a tendency to do, she outgrew them.  I had them put away for a while, but dug them back out when we had a dirty outside job to do (working cattle). If we're going to stain/ruin a pair of jeans, it might as well be a pair that are too small and unwearable... no matter how cute they are! 

Thankfully, we didn't stain them though!  Because as I was doing laundry and came across these pants to fold and put in a box again, I had a light bulb moment!  With a little snip here and a little tuck there, a scrap of fabric and a few minutes at the sewing machine....

The jeans; they don't really look bellbottom-y when laying on the floor, but they looked hippy-ish when she wore them.

First, I turned them inside out so I could see....

....where to cut along the inside seam to remove it and open up the pants legs.

After finding the scrap of fabric (this one happened to be leftovers from Sarah's pajamas I made her for Christmas)....

....I pinned it to the inside of the legs.  I sewed the fabric insert to the legs, trimmed and hemmed the bottom hem and then did the front side.  Tip: when experimenting and learning as you go, do the back side first; that way, the mistakes are being sat on!

The finished product still looks pretty jean-y when laying on the floor, but....
(And now time for the model show...)

....its really cute when she's wearing it! 

She insisted I take a back shot :-)

Sarah was really excited to have a skirt "like mama's" (referring to the denim skirt that I wear as often as I can without getting funny looks of "wasn't she wearing that the last time I saw her?") and even more excited when I told her she could wear it to town this morning to do errands.  Of course, we (because I had mine on, too) had two layers of thermals on under our skirts to accommodate the -0 windchills we were having, but we were toasting warm!

And now, my favorite pair of jeans for Miss Sarah Rose lives on!