Revamping Vintage Denim: How to Create Stylish Patchwork Bell Bottoms

From High School Jeans to Patchwork Bell Bottoms

A friend of mine recently turned 40 and they decided to have a birthday party for once (they usually don’t have parties to celebrate their birthday very often, if ever). And the theme was High School. They wanted everyone who came to the party to dress like they did in high school. Which I thought was a really fun theme. And so of course, I had to think about what I used to wear in high school.

Now I was born in the early 80s and so my jr. high and high school experience was during the height of the 90s. JNCO Jeans, MUDD jeans, bringing the 60s and 70s fashion back, etc. And so, my style was that of a mix up of the 60s and 70s. I had these fantastic black 3-inch platform boots. They were ankle high, and the toe box was large and rounded. I think they may have been from that catalog Delia’s. (I loved Delia’s. I had a few shirts from them too. But I wanted to look like all of the models in every catalog. In fact, I recall wanting to be a fashion designer because I was so inspired by Delia’s. Not like they had anything super different. It was just shirts and jeans. I think I may have had a dress from them too. It was just different than the JCPenney or Kohl’s or even Marshal Fields! Remember them?) When I would wear my myriad of bell bottom MUDD Jeans, I would also wear my platforms. Then I also wore mostly XL tie-dyed shirts (XL so they were extra baggy). Most had prints on them. One of my favorites was Absalom smoking a hookah on a mushroom and the tie-dye colors were blues and purples. Of course I had plenty of Grateful Dead tie-dye as well. And even did a bunch of my own tie-dye with shirts I made in printshop class.

Plus, I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing anyway lately and it just seemed fitting that my friend would decide to do something so appropriate.

All of this got me to thinking. I still have a couple pairs of jeans left over from my high school days. Granted, I did get rid of most of them. They were all size 2’s and 3’s and I am definitely not a size 2 or 3 anymore, so there just wasn’t any sense in keeping them when some other girl out there could appreciate 100% cotton jeans (yes back then they were still 100% cotton) and fully bell bottomed. I actually was going to get rid of the rest of the jeans I had left but my mom convinced me to keep them saying that I could use them to make other things. Which seemed wrong to me. Why would I rip apart a perfectly good pair of jeans to make a purse that I don’t need?!

I digress.

The party was fast approaching, and I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to do what I wanted to do with my jeans. I rummaged around in my closet, opening containers trying to find the one with the jeans inside and voila! MUDD Jeans size 5, button fly, bell bottoms: perfect!

Now, what to do?

I kind of had already decided I was going to seam rip the sides and then add in some quilting. (This was an old hippie trick I’d done before on a pair of corduroys in high school so I knew it was an acceptable solution to a pair of pants that no longer fit. And boy, did these pants no longer fit). I just needed some fabric squares cut. Now I have a bunch of excess fabric. But none of it was cut. And cutting is my least favorite part of the entire sewing process, but thankfully a lot of places now sell bundles of cut fabric, in tons of different sizes. So, I went online and bought a 100 squares set at 6×6 inches. That way I have a ½ inch on each side for seam allowance, giving me an overall 5 inch square.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take me all that long to seam rip the sides out. Waiting for the fabric to arrive took much longer.

Once I got the fabric I also had to think about how to quilt them. I had done some measurements while I was waiting for the fabric to arrive. The jeans in question were 30 inches at the hip (30 inches at the hip! It was enough to make a woman cry), and my current hips are roughly 45 inches. Plus I like a more relaxed fit now and figured that adding 20 inches total would be perfect, basically 10 inches on each side. This meant I needed to do 10×10 inch squares, so 4 of the 6×6 squares sewing together.

Then I put just about 3 full squares together. Instead of making them true quilting squares, (wherein you sew the outside fabric together, then quilt the backing fabric) I decided to just sew all of my outside fabric together first making a 10 inch (width) by 52 inch (length) panel. I had some black denim left over from another project and that I cut two panels of 10×52 inch. Then quilted the outside fabric and the backing fabric together. I did a basic X through the 10×10 square to attach the back panel.

Of course, time was not on my side, so I did not document my entire process. And I only did before and after pics.

But this below image is basically what I did to attach the front and back panels together.

A vertically arranged grid pattern consisting of triangles and diamond shapes outlined in black.

It didn’t take long because I was going super basic on my quilting. The longest part was all the ironing of the seams before I applied the back fabric.

Once all that was done, I could attach to my jeans!

I did have a little bit of a tough spot at the waist of the jeans themselves. Because I had seam ripped the sides out, there was a good ½ inch of fabric available to sew with. But the waist on jeans isn’t something that’s really available to be seam ripped. I had to just cut the waist of the jeans and then finagle the fabric to get it at a ½ inch seam allowance at the waist. I also had to bake in the top seam which I did at about a ½ inch as well. The rest was just basic sewing. Once I was done with both leg seams on each side, then I went to my serger and serged the edges.

If you look at the inside of a pair of jeans, at least ones made back in the 90s, this is basically the same method they do: Sew the seam, then serge the edges.

I did end up sewing the serged edge flat to the waist area to keep the edge from flopping around. And when I did the hem on the legs, I made sure to keep the serged edge flat in the same direction as the waist.

Now these jeans had seen some action, so there was a bunch of fabric missing from the back part of the leg on the original hemmed edge of the jeans. Thankfully the seam itself was still intact and I was able to sew the panels on no problem, and then the hem was good.

Because I was adding so much additional fabric (almost 2/3’s of the original size of the jeans) I needed to also have some belt loops. I took more of the black denim I had and cut those into 1 ½ inch by 1-inch strips ( and I cut about 4 of them, two for each side) and then folded them in half and then folded in the edges and sewed them that way. When I applied them to the pants, I folded down the top and bottom portions of the loop and sewed those with a zigzag stitch several times to the waist of the jeans.

All in all, it was a fun little side project to do in between my mock-ups. Plus, I got to travel down memory lane for a little while and that was fun.

See below for my steps and ingredients. Its fun to recycle old clothes. And now I have a fully functional pair of jeans that I used to wear in high school!

Ingredients

1 pair of jeans (these can be any you currently have like from high school, or ones you bought at a thrift store)

A bunch of 6×6 inch quilting squares (purchased or cut on your own. Also sized based on how much additional space you want/need)

10×52 inch backing fabric panels (or enough fabric to use as a backing to the quilting squares)

Thread to match (or not match, dealers’ choice)

4 – 1 ½ x 1-inch strips of fabric for belt loops

A seam ripper

Steps

First identify how much you’ll want to add to the jeans. In my case it was 10 inches width on either side, but it could be different depending on the look you’re going for and how the pants sit on your body, etc.
Once you know how wide each panel will be, cut your fabric squares (or buy pre-cut squares to your desired width/length).
Sew the squares in typical quilting fashion (two squares first, then sew those two squares to another two squares, then that big 4×4 square to another 4×4 square) until you reach your desired length (see images below).
Now take your backing fabric and pin it to your length of quilting, sew large X’s through each 4×4 square (see image above).
Seam rip the side seam of both legs of the jeans. Making sure to cut the waist portion only (unless you can seam rip this in some way)
Before pinning your panel to the pants, make sure to complete a seam at the top edge of the panel to prevent fraying. (Leave the bottom hem for later).
Pin your now completed panel (right sides facing) to your jeans.
Sew the first side.
Sew the other side.
Now do the other leg in the same manner you did the previous steps.
Before you hem, make sure to finish off your edges on both seams on both legs (this can be with a serger/overlocker, or use a zigzag stitch).
Now you can hem!