Recycled Denim Bag

I hopped on to blogger to write this post to find my blog had been removed!!!!!!  I could have cried :-(  It turned out blogger had taken my blog down due to 'suspicious' activity.  WOW!  I have a bit of a blogging break and when I start posting again more regularly they call it suspicious!  But it is all fixed now and hopefully back up permanently.  Now to my intended post ...

It was my niece's 14th birthday on Saturday and I wanted to give her a present I thought she would really like but I didn't want to spend any money on it (not because I am a scrooge, but because money is just tight at the moment).  The notebook cover I gave her at Christmas with a movie ticket wasn't a big hit so I was a bit nervous about making her anything else.  A few weeks ago i saw a really cool bag on Pinterest made from recycled jeans that was constructed from a pattern.  But when I went to see if I could buy the pattern it was going to cost me $25 including postage!  I googled lots of free bag patterns but none suited my purpose so I decided to make up my own.

It is a simple construction but I really like the way it turned out.  It is made mostly from the top part of a pair of jeans that no longer fit me, but I only used the back and half the front.  I kept most of that part intact as I thought why ruin the stitching someone else has already done.  I even left the zipper in for a bit of texture and the left side of the bag is actually the button hole part of the jeans front.  After I made the bag I blinged it up with pink and clear rhinestones.  The 'B' is for her name.  The strap is the long side seam of one leg cut off and sewn into a tube.  I must be the right height for the perfect shoulder strap as it was exactly the size I wanted!

I removed the pocket that would have bent around the side and added it to the lining on the inside.  I also blinged the outside pocket.  The bag does have sides and a bottom, made by just sewing a triangle point on each side seam.

The back part of the inside had a strip of denim containing the brand and the SIZE!!!!  I couldn't remove it as it is pinned in place by two studs.  So I cut it out  and sewed in a strip of pink grosgrain with a keyring.  I find this kind of thing so useful for clipping my keys to so that they don't get lost in the buttomless pit!  I quite like how it turned out.  You can see the pocket on the lining in this picture.

And she loved it too!  I know this for sure because she was using it when she came to my nephew's birthday party.  She had filled each of the pockets with stuff and crammed her swimming stuff into it :-)  Now it seems everyone wants one but I don't have that many jeans that don't fit any more ... soon maybe :-)

Chipper