Making a Jeans Vest out of old Jeans Trousers.

I have always like recycling, using old things to make new stuff, so i embanked to make a vest out of an old pair of jean i had lining around. The original plan was to make it into a jacket that i will use while riding on my bike. When i got to the stage that it looked like a vest i stopped because to me it looked good ruggedly good, like the biker vests you see in the movies with the arm torn off.

Jeans Vest Front View

Jeans Vest Back View

My completed Jeans Vest.

This is how i made it.

You have your normal pair of jeans. With a craft knife or any sharp blade, you cut along the major seams, where the jeans fabrics are together.

Where to cut.

After that is all done you should end up with something like this. If you want you can also remove the back pockets, the front pockets as well. Make sure to keep the top part of the trouser, that is the belt part. We will make use of that later.

After opening the seams.

Next is to measure how much length you want your vest to be and cut.

Measuring And Cutting the Jeans

Next is to lay the pieces flat, the front pieces together and the back pieces together. 

Back Piece before stitching.

Back Piece after stitching.

 For the back piece, next comes the shoulder angle and length.

Shoulder Angle

 For the shoulder angle you can take ant shirt you have and use that as a guide, as for the shoulder you can use a shirt or you just measure from where the neck meets the shoulder down to a length you are comfortable with.
A2-B2 serves as your neck width which can be measured neck meets the shoulder to the other side.
Once you have marked the angles you can cut it if you want, what i did was to lay it over the front piece and stitch them from the inside.


The front piece
You fold the along the indicated line and however you choose to fasten it it's up to you.

The vest width
Same thing, its up to you, if you wish for it to be wide to can leave it as it is or you can reduce it by cutting from the sides.

Now you can join the two halves together at the shoulders.

Your vest will begin to take shape from here. line up the two hales at the bottom and stitch from the sides going up.

A-B represents the arm hole for both sides of the vest, for me 12inches in length was comfortable for me. You can increase or decrease it as you like.

B-C represents where you need to stitch on both sides.

From here you can style your vest as you want, you can add the belt strap you took off from the top of the jeans trousers to the bottom of the vest, you can add the pockets, you can add tassels, paint it, you can go as wild as you want, its your design.

Hope you have fun making this.

I will be making a jeans jacket soon once i get the time, do check back to see.

0813.