Jean Splicing

What am I going to do with these old pairs of jeans that don't suit me? These days I want a comfy loose-fitting low-rise boot-cut. Time for a bit of jean splicing! The two shall become one, by maker hand, or else by none.

Two pairs of jeans.

A sewing machine.

Cut a complete slice around the inside leg of the donor pair of jeans. Here I've taken material backwards from the central seam. The section I've taken is thicker at the base to give me a boot cut, and also a bit more generous at the gusset (the part between the legs).

Cut open the legs, removing only the inner seam. Since I want to end up with low-rise jeans I've taken away a bit more material at the gusset from both the front and rear.

With the jeans inside-out, use safety pins to hold the insert correctly at the gusset. Then stich from the gusset downwards, front and back, left and right, to create new seams which point inwards. Because the insert and the gap aren't exactly the same length, as I'm stitching I try to feed through a little more of the longer edge to compensate. At the end I'm still left with a slight mismatch, but it doesn't matter, we'll tidy that up later.

Now stitch again along each seam, this time going back and forth across the edge. This is for two reasons: (1) it will stop the edges from fraying; (2) it will flatten the seams so they don't rub against your legs. I've angled the edges outwards away from the inner leg. Work from the bottoms of the legs upwards until you arrive at the gusset to fasten it. As you move up a leg, it will concertina up around the arm of the sewing machine.

Finish off the bottom hem. Here I've dealt with the remaining length mismatch by sewing in a small fold.

Here's one I made earlier! Mix, match, experiment. You've got nothing to lose except baggage.