Little Girl's Jeans Refashion

My daughter grows out of clothes length wise, never width wise.  She has long, skinny legs pants that are long enough for her always end up being too big in the waist, even with the adjustable waist bands.  That being said, she outgrows the legs of the pants long before she ever is too big for the waist.  Every year I think about trying to extend the life of her jeans, and finally got around to working on a pair of them.  She had a pair of skinny jeans that were too short, and a little worn in the knees, but fit fine otherwise.  I decided to add a cute ruffle to the bottom and put patches on the knees to give them a little more life.  

I started by cutting the hem of the jeans off right above the cuff.  Once I had that piece, I cut it and measured the length to find out how big around the ruffle would need to be. This was my easy solution to avoid putting any sort of effort into figuring out my measurements.  It was 10.75" long, so I doubled that for the width to allow enough room to gather the fabric. 

Not a great picture, but you'll get the idea...

I wanted my ruffle to be about 2.5", and I hate adding hems, so I cut the fabric at 6" and folded it in half.  Here are the steps I went through for the ruffle... 

I sewed the ends together to make a circle, and then gathered the top edge.  I recently bought a gathering presser foot for my sewing machine, and it changed my life.  I was horrible at the loose stitch, pull the strings to gather method, and just ended up avoiding anything that required gathering.  Now it takes barely any time at all and looks a million times better.  Once I had the gathering done, I flipped it inside out and pinned it around the cuff of the jeans (they were right side out) and sewed them together. I pressed them flat and topstitched around the jeans as well, but didn't take a picture of that step.

Next, I made appliques using the same method I described in my Denver Bronco Baby Onesies post.  I placed them on the knees and on a shirt so that she would have a whole outfit.  

I love how it turned out and my little fashionista was more than happy to pose for pictures.