Recycled Jeans Wrap Skirt Tutorial: Part One of Three

This is a picture I lifted from the LLBean website. I made a wrap skirt which really does look much like this, minus the belt loops (and the tanned legs). Here is how you can make one, too.

First, gather up three pairs of old jeans. They will need to be close to your own size, or larger, to be sure you have sufficient fabric. The next step, I am sorry to tell you, is to measure the circumference of your waist, at the place where you would like the waist of your skirt to sit. If this depresses you, as it always does me, just remember that in a few hours you will have a cute new skirt to wear. This should cheer you up.

Multiply this waist measurement by one-and-a-half. Yes, it just got worse, but hang in there. Because you will be wrapping this skirt around, it will be double thickness in the back, so it needs to have fabric for the back, the front, and the back again. Make a note of this number, as well as your waist measurement, for later calculations.
Cut off the pant legs, and trim all the seams away. Set up your iron and press the twelve pieces of fabric which result. (You can see from the picture that I did the pressing later, but I learned better.)
Cut the trimmed pant legs into twelve wedges. You can do this with a straight edge and scissors if you don't have rotary stuff for cutting. The narrow end of each wedge should measure one inch more than one-twelfth the total number (waist measurement times one-and-a-half) you got above. The other end of each wedge should be as wide as possible. They need not match in bottom width, nor in length. You can even fudge a bit on the width of the top of the wedge a little, as I did, having some a little wider and others a little bit narrow. Wrap skirts are very forgiving.
Here are five of twelve wedges. Using all twelve wedges, sew these one to another with one-half-inch seams, keeping them evenly aligned at the narrow ends, like a fan. (See tutorial number two for a view of the results of following this step.)

Recycled Jeans Wrap Skirt Tutorial: Part Two of Three

Here are the twelve panels sewn together.
On the right side of the skirt, finish the seams by pressing both edges of the seam allowance on the underside so that they are under the needle, and stitching close to the seam on the top side of the skirt. A finished seam, finished, can be seen on the left. Click on the picture for a closer view.
Finish the right and left edges of the wrap skirt by folding the raw edge under once, then folding it under again, and stitching.
Measure the shortest of the panels then measure each of the other panels, marking off the length to match. (A sliver of soap makes a great marking tool for this step.) Trim the panels along these lines. Finish the hem edge by folding under twice and top stitching, as you did on the skirt edges.

Recycled Jeans Wrap Skirt Tutorial: Part Three of Three

Make a waistband by creating a length of two-and-a-half-inch wide cotton fabric. It's length should be the equivalent of twice the measurement of the circumference of your waist, plus one yard. Heat up your iron and press this strip so that the two raw edges meet in the middle on the wrong side of the fabric. Position this pressed waistband strip along the wrong side of the skirt with raw edges together. Laying out the skirt with wrong side up, the waistband should extend eighteen inches beyond the skirt's left edge, and on the right edge it should extend beyond the skirt edge in a length equal to half your waist measurement plus eighteen inches. (Approximate measurements will do.) Sew the waistband to the skirt along the waistband strip's pressed fold line closest to the edge, with the right side of the waistband against the wrong side of the skirt, as shown above.
Bring the two folded edges of the waistband strip together and top stitch the edges together to finish the end ties.
Continue top stitching as you bring the waistband around from the back, fitting it snugly against the raw edge of the skirt and letting it fold in along the pressed-in line.
Here is the finished skirt. The tie on the right is eighteen inches long. The tie on the left is half your waist circumference plus eighteen inches. The last step is to make nine one-inch buttonholes in the waistband: three buttonholes above the fourth panel from the left, three above the fifth panel from the left and three more above the sixth panel from the left. This way you can continue to wear the skirt as your waistline size changes.

To wear the skirt, you wrap it around yourself, threading the shorter of the ties through a buttonhole, and bringing the longer tie across your waist to tie in a bow with the other.