4th of July Jeans

I wanted to make my daughter a fun outfit for the 4th of July instead of having to buy her something.

We are going to be heading down to the Charles river to watch the famous Boston fireworks and listen to the POPS spectacular! Since we have been given so many hand-me-downs, she has enough jeans for me to ruin or improve a pair:)


So, I cut off the ends of these jeans, to make some shorts/capris.

I decided to do a star collage, and cut stars out of cardstock in a variety of sizes.

I found some red, white and blue fabric in my scraps and ironed on heat-n-bond. Then, I traced the stars onto the heat-n-bond, and cut them out.

Starting with the front of the jeans, I arranged half the stars and ironed them down, allowing the edges to hang over so that I could wrap them around the sides. Then, I arranged the other stars on the back of the jeans and ironed them down.

Finally, I opened the jeans so the sides were flat, and ironed down the overlapping edges.

Then came the hard part. I sewed around each star, along each edge that had nothing overlapping it. I used about 1/8" seam allowance.  As I got up the jean leg, it was VERY difficult. I rolled up the pant leg as far as I could and man handled it. Only broke 1 needle.

After going to all this work, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep the jeans as cut-offs. So, I decided to sew on a little ruffle. I cut a 30” x 2.5” piece of fabric, folded the long edge over twice, ironed it and sewed it.  This keeps the bottom edge from fraying.

Then, I made a ruffle along the other edge, and sewed it to the bottom of the pant leg.  (Sew the short ends of the long piece of ruffle fabric together.  Using a straight stitch with long stitches, sew across the top, then pull one of the threads to ruffle it up.  Pin, right sides together to the jeans and sew with 1/4" seam allowance.  Iron flat.  Compared to the rest, this part was easy!)

So, I am pretty pleased with the result. A matching shirt may follow – if I can find the time. Otherwise, I am sure it will look cute with a plain red, white or blue shirt – and my daughter will be the most patriotic of them all!