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I upcycled my stash of skinny jeans that sat in my closet. I no longer wore those old pants, so I turned them into a new DIY denim jacket.
They were of various colors and washes, so I ended up with a color-blocked creation. This project took a lot of time, but I absolutely love the results!
Simplicity S8845 Jacket Pattern
I bought Simplicity S8845 sewing pattern when it first came out. This Mimi G Style jacket has sizing for women, men, and teens.
In fact, I bought this pattern three times when it was on sale! I cut one small, medium, and large!
This is a well-designed, structured garment with 20 pattern pieces to sew.
You’ll have to make flat-fell seams, welt pockets, buttonholes, a collar, cuffs, and a bottom band. Plus, you’ll sew or hammer on buttons.
And there’s a helpful sew-along video on YouTube.
Materials
Here are the fabric and notions I used for this project. I knew those old jeans would come in handy one day!
Fabric: Well, since I upcycled jeans for my project, I didn’t have to run out and buy fabric. It took six pairsof Levi’s skinny jeans to make one jacket.
Yes… I needed that many jeans because they were so skinny.
From the fashion district, I got a cheap, stretchy woven denim for the mockup.
Besides denim, other suggested fabrics are chino, corduroy, sateen, and twill.
Notions: I used 5/8-inch (0.625-inch) dungaree buttons and medium-weight interfacing.
Sewing My Denim Jacket
This garment took time to sew because it was a detailed project. The most time-consuming part for me was prepping.
This was the first time I had upcycled jeans into a jacket, but I had made tote bags out of jeans before.
First, I had to figure out the sizing, so I created a mockup.This time I made a size smedium—between a small and medium.
I made my mockup in a size small and it was snug around the middle, so I sized up.
The jeans had different colors and washes, so I laid them out and visualized what would look best once sewn together.
The jeans themselves were slimmer cuts, so they worked perfectly with this sewing pattern. I sewed smaller pieces together to cut from.
And before making my jacket, I watched the sew-along video. This wasn’t the first jean jacket I had made.
No matter how many times I’ve made welt pockets, they always stump me!
I didn’t make the flat-fell seams. Rather, I stitched and serged the seams, and then double topstitched them with heavy-duty gold thread.
So, constantly changing out the thread took time!
The length of the jacket was long on me, and I’m tall. So, I cropped it by one inch.
After all was done, I hammered the dungaree buttons and hit my thumb. Ouch!
What a way to end a project with a grand finale!
Notes
When topstitching, you may want to adjust your stitch length. My machine automatically selects the length, and I always forget to change it.
Don’t get upset if this pattern takes you many hours to sew. This took me days, but I wasn’t in any kind of rush.
And one day, I was walking through Nordstrom wearing my jacket, and an employee asked if I had bought it from the luxury designer section. Whaaat?
Now, that made me smile! After all the sweat, blood, and tears, it was nice to get such a compliment!
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I’m 63 and start out in tailoring and sewing following a challenge from my wife and eldest daughter a few years ago. I’ve just bought this same patern as my wife wants a custom denim jacket in pale yellow but I have all kinds of ideas for detailing! Love your jacket, I have so many pairs of old jeans and that gives me some ideas – I really like the stiching on the back. I’ve always had a denim jacket / denim cut-off (over a bike leather jacket) but starting to enjoy my tailoring journey. So much still to learn!
Thank you Matt! I’d love to see how your jacket comes out. That’s so sweet that you’re making a jacket for your wife, and I wish you continued success in tailoring. 🙂