I mentioned in the Rag Rugs Post that I had used the other parts of the jeans for other projects. I ended up using the bag of the waistline to make mug holders, the back pockets to make hot/cold packs, and the leg seam pieces to make trivets.
The reason I had the seams left over was because one jean rug tutorial I had found online had told me to cut out the seams and not use them in the rugs. I think if I do this again I won’t bother doing that – I used some of the leftover seam pieces in the last big scrap rug I made, and that worked out fine. *shrug* That rug had all sorts of thicknesses in the pieces, though, so maybe it would matter in a jean rug with more uniform thickness. As the jeans pieces usually ended up twisted and folded over, I don’t think it would be much different if the seams were in some of the pieces.
Most of them! I think I had 14 hot/cold packs in the end, and 8 mug holders.
I made 5 trivets out of the leg seam pieces. They were made exactly the same as the rag rugs, only much smaller. I apologize for the blurriness of my pictures – I can’t go back and re-take them, as these are all given away!
Trivets!
The mug holders were made by taking a Starbucks cardboard disposable holder and seeing that I could match up the curve of it roughly to the curve underneath the backside of the waistband. I lined up the Starbucks template, cut the part out of the jeans (with extra room for overlap and folding under the rough edges), machine-sewed the edges under, and hand-sewed it together at the right amount of overlap. I’m wearing one on my wrist below so you can kind of see what it’s like. I don’t have the right size mug to try it on at home, so I didn’t take a picture. But I did try one, and they work! I really like the belt loops that are on them – it’s fun to put my fingers through them. 🙂 And it’s easy to clip this on your keys carabiner and take it with you, if that’s how you like to roll. Plus, they are more original and nifty than the original cardboard, they are better for the environment because they were recycled from old material and reusable, and they insulate the mug better. I believe I made 8, since I had 8 pairs of jeans. I like them. I kept one for myself, heehee.
Mug holder! Fashionable* wrist warmer! So versatile!
Finally, I made hot/cold packs. They are back pockets that had three lines sewn down them, stuffed with rice ~3/4 of the way, and then the top of sewn shut. If you keep them in the freezer, they work as cold packs, and if you warm them in the microwave, they work as heat packs! I only made them out of the back pockets that didn’t have rivets in them (that would be bad in the microwave), so I made 14 of them (two of the pockets had rivets on them). I also added nice loops so that you could pick it up from the microwave without hurting your fingers.
Front! I love the neat designs the pockets lend to the packs.
Back! You can still see the chalk I used to initially mark where I would sew.
I’m also making a patchwork skirt out of parts of these leftover jean scraps, but that’s not finished. Anyone have any ideas of what to do with all the neat short metal zippers I now have from the jeans zips? Even better if you think of something that could use the original jean casing around them, so I don’t have to seam-rip them out. And if anyone wants a small bag (grocery plastic bag sized) of jean scraps – mostly the loose front pockets and bits of waistline with belt loops, along with some of the metal zippers – let me know! I don’t have any plans for them and would be fine giving them away. (If several people end up wanting these, I will use a random number picker on the internet to pick who gets them!) I’m only willing to ship within the USA for this (and probably Canada? I don’t think it’s much more expensive).
*This was not tested on the market to see if the term “fashionable” holds, but no one can prove that it’s not. *shifty eyes*
