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Portia Lawrie

refashioning, Restyles, Thrifting

Restyle # 22 – Straight Leg to Cigarette Pants

09/21/11

More restyling today. I’m on a roll 😉 I thrifted these “jeans” for £2. Brand new. Never been worn. The fabric is a lovely soft stretch twill and I loved the powdery blue colour. I didn’t however like the shape and length in the lower leg. (Left pic) They were semi bootcut and the kind of length that doesn’t reach quite the right point of your shoes. Kind of flapping around my ankles like a flag at half mast!
So I put them on inside out and pinned out a rough idea of the shape I wanted them to be, (middle pic). I then marked out a smoother stitching line using the pins as a guide, and sewed the new seamline, blending it into the existing seam. Oh, and I shortened them by about 3″ (Right Pic)
The result was a shape more akin to the tapered cigarette pants that I am absolutely loving at the moment. (The curvy girls version of skinny jeans, lol!) Try as I might I couldn’t get a full length shot to show the shaping at the ankle/hem. For some reason the way I stand (or perhaps the camera angle) makes it look as if they’re really tight at the ankle. (They’re not at all) So here’s a side on close up too…

I suspect I’m going to get have already had alot of wear out of these and have a couple more pairs of trousers lined up for the same treatment. These were simple to do because the inseam and outer seams were standard straight seams and easy to blend in with a new stitching line. However, I haven’t quite worked out how to do this on jeans as they tend to have flat fell seams (usually on the inseam only) which would be nowhere near as straightforward to blend into a new seam without having to unpick the whole thing and even then….Hmmm! Thinking cap is on….any thoughts?
Px

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