Recycled Used Jeans

Make Jeans into Bags

Recycled used jeans are a great source of material for making your reusable bags.  When you make jeans into bags, you have heavy-duty fabric to work with since you can cut around most of the high-wear areas of the jeans.  The most important element to consider when you want to sew denim is having a heavy-duty needle and thread to use, and know or learn how to handle your sewing machine with heavy material.

Start by laying out your jeans and cutting the legs off, just below the crotch.  Try not to catch any pockets that reach that far down.  You can save the top of the jeans for another style of bag, if you wish, and the instructions will be provided on this site at a future date.

Cut the legs up the inner seam.  Cut that inseam section off the legs entirely, and lay your fabric out flat.  Measure your sections as described in the how to make bags page, and in this case, move your fabric to offset the seam placement. In other words, to minimize bulk, the existing seams should only be sewn to a section of flat fabric on the adjacent side.  Pictures will be added soon to illustrate this, so please do check back.

You will have enough remaining fabric for handles, and even enough to make a pocket or two, if you wish.  The size of your recycled used jeans will determine the size of your reusable bags.  But then, it stands to reason that if you are petite, you may need smaller grocery shopping bags!