Saturday 15 September 2012

Tie Dye Bell Bottom Jeans


We have a 60's party to attend so I did some "bleach" tie dye.
I have my next quilting project picked out, but it was a tie dye day,
so I decided to show you what I'm doing. 

You will need a pair of jeans to alter, plus a pair to use for the bell bottom insert.  

 Using your old pair of jeans, cut off the legs to use for the bell bottom jeans insert.
You will cut the wedge out of this to make the flare for the bottom of the jeans.

 


Pull and tie sections of the denim with rubber bands. 
Make sure the rubber bands are as tight as possible. 

Put on some plastic gloves.   Wear crappy clothes. 
Mix a solution of 1 part bleach to 1 part water in a small craft bottle. 
The bottle I used is approx 125 ml.  or 1/2 cup. 
Using all of this solution for the jeans leg, put the solution on the fabric
focusing only on the areas where the elastics are. 
Some parts of the fabric will be dry.
Wrap the denim in plastic and leave it sit for an hour or more for
the color to bleach out around the elastic. 
 

At the same time, use the same process to bleach tie-dye your jeans that you will alter. 

 Wearing your plastic gloves and crappy clothes, remove the elastics by cutting with scissors. Be careful when handling the denim. Rinse the denim in the washing machine and dry fully. 
 
 * 

Cut a wedge out of the denim you just bleached and insert it into the side of the leg. 
I did the outside seam.  You can do both inside and outside seams if you want your bell bottoms huge. 
 

Here is a link on how to do the bell bottoms 


 Here is another view of the jeans after putting the flare in the side of the leg. 



Here are another pair of party jeans! 
These are 100% cotton and didn't need as much time to bleach.  Approx. 1 hr.
The above pair have some spandex content and took longer.  Approx. 2 hrs. 
 

 Have fun!


Wednesday 12 September 2012

Cherry Blossoms of Japan


Completed this week, my inspiration for this painting came from the
 beautiful sight of the Cherry Blossom trees in Japan.