Jeans Remade Into Grocery Bags

About 2 years ago a friend gave me about 11 pairs of jeans that he and his son were no longer wearing.  They sat around and then I made 3 really nice purses for 3 friends of my daughter Mary as thank you gifts for their help with her wedding.  I made a few pairs of jeans for my grandkids out of more pairs of them and had about 6 pairs left along with 3 that I outgrew.  They continue to stare at me every time I open the closet door.

I determined that this weekend I would make market bags from them.  The grocery bags I have been using that were purchased from various stores are starting to wear out There was no rhyme or reason to the jean bags....just started cutting and sewing not even caring about thread matching, etc.  The ecru colored purse is from the same pair of pants I used to make the cargo pants for Canaan a few weeks ago.

Added Cloth Belt to this one to spruce it up

Love the detail on the pockets on this one!

My first attempt at a rectangle bag....the one in the tutorial below came out better.

My favorite one......

Then, Jerry said he wanted to help me make one that would be the same size as my favorite Trader Joe's bag.  I didn't have my camera out and he said....well, aren't you going to take pictures?...so I did!

I took pictures to make a semi-tutorial....Hope it is not too confusing.

 This is the pair of jeans before we started cutting.

 Jerry is pointing to approximately where we did the first cut.  We cut pieces off of each pants leg. 

We then cut each piece long enough to match the height of the Trader Joe's bag.

When I cut down the center of the leg pieces of the jeans they would flare like a skirt.  Jerry used the Framing-square to make straight edges on the two leg pieces.

I sewed two of the edges together and then sewed the other two edges together.

Jerry uses the L-square to cut out the rectangle shaped bottom piece.

 I then sewed the bottom piece to the top piece and used the waistband to make the straps. In picture above the side seams are the two seams of the top piece.  

 This is the back of the bag...sewed the straps down to be a little creative:):)

A close up of my "creativeness"....:)

I used a back pocket from the pair of jeans to sew over a hole on the front side of this very cute grocery bag!!!!!

Time to go to the store!