Turn holey jeans into adorable shorts!

If you are like us, you have LOTS of jeans that have holes in the knees but they fit fine everywhere else.

We were looking for a way to turn those jeans into useable, NICE jean shorts; not just cut offs with strings hanging everywhere.
Enter Pinterest. :-) Here is the tutorial I found....

Step One was to cut off the jeans

Now, I don't have a problem with that tutorial, but I can say that we tweaked it a bit! :-)

I took pictures of each step with Jessica's pants.

Step 1: Cut off the jeans. Learn from my mistake, cut them off then CHECK THE LENGTH. You want the length a little shorter than you want the finished product!

Step 2. This is where I disagree with the original. It says to measure the circumference of the pant leg and add 6 inches....this leave 3 inches hanging out of each side to tie. We did this on the first pair...but didn't feel that was enough length to tie. We went ahead and added 8-10 inches so that we had longer ties.  We also found that for us...with kids jeans sizes 7-14 we could just make one standard piece that was 6 inches wide and 28 inches long. We cut two of these pieces for each pair of shorts. See below.

Step 3: Take your long narrow strip of fabric and fold it in half, lengthwise INSIDE OUT!

Step 4: Take BOTH strips that have been folded in half lengthwise and stack them on top of each other, fold them in half so that all four narrow ends are stacked on top of each other. Then cut a diagonal piece off of them starting at the fold and cutting off the open areas. This creates an angle for the ties.

Trust me, this just sounds more tedious than it is! I am being REALLY explicit with my directions! The thing is that these first steps should have only taken about 5 minutes total!

Step 5: Now for the first part of the sewing. Sew one short edge and the long edge....be sure to leave one small end open so you can turn the tube right side out!

Step 6: More sewing! Zig Zag stitch around the edge of the cut off parts of the pants. This is quick and easy! It doesn't have to be perfect!

Step 7: Take the right side out tube and fold under the edge so that you can sew the edge shut now.

Step 8: Take both completed tubes of fabric and place them with the sewn edge meeting up with the cut edge of the jeans and the rest of the tube going UP the pant leg toward the waist. Make sure to fold the piece in half and note the center. Place that center right on the INSIDE seam of the pant leg. Pin in place. This will leave two flaps, one on the front of the pants and one on the back sticking out past the edge of the jeans.

Step 9: Once all the pinning is in place, choose a beautiful assistant like my daughter to help you sew! Sew around from one edge of the jeans, near the flaps, around the center and to the other edge of the flap. DO NOT SEW THE FLAPS TOGETHER!

Step 10: Once you have sewn both tubes of fabric on both legs, flip them downward and tie a square knot on the outside of the leg using the flaps that are sticking out!

Once you have that done, you can let the owner of the new shorts try on your masterpiece!