After focusing on a long-term project for months, once it was done, there were all sorts of smaller projects I wanted to catch up on and dive into. Rather than put it off for a few weeks, an upcycling project for February's Aurifil Artisan Challenge sounded inviting. It seemed the perfect timing to try Svetlana's @sotakhandmade video tutorial to Learn How to turn a pair of Old Jeans into a Stylish Tote Bag.
The exterior fabric was a simple choice as I'd already had a pair of hubby's old denim jeans stashed for a project. For the lining, I chose some Alexander Henry Fashion for Home Heath decorator-weight fabric. Since it was not the canvas suggested, I went ahead and interfaced it with fusible Pellon SF101, just like I did the jeans.
I followed Svetlana's tutorial pretty closely for the first exterior panel. For the second, I veered off a bit, knowing what size it needed to be.
For the handles, I used 25" lengths of 1" wide webbing, and the bag finished at 13" wide on bottom x 11" tall x 5" deep. I used Aurifil Forty3 2360 [Chocolate] for piecing and topstitching and 40wt 2360 [Chocolate] in the bobbin. The pair worked just great on the denim. In the side shown above, there was a small rip near the pocket label, and I used Aurifil 12wt 1126 [Blue Grey] for simple mending. It was an awkward spot, so I chose not to make the mending overly visible; ie. the Blue Grey thread was a pretty good match. Just for the record, I also used a 100/16 sewing machine needle for all the machine stitching, and had no trouble at all sewing through the denim - just had to take it slow once in a while.
Included in Svetlana's tutorial was the removal of several belt loops with a sharp seam ripper, so they could be sewn onto the bag elsewhere. I was reminded that seam rippers do wear out, and took the opportunity to replace mine with a new one. That definitely made the loop removal easier.
