Upcycled jeans bags -- making it work

My current obsession is transforming old jeans into cool new bags for iPads and Kindles. For material, I look for high-quality denim, usually stone-washed. I keep my eye out for tasteful prints, but these are harder to find.

I enjoy combining material from different pieces and I'm always on the lookout for cool pockets. (Sometimes I'll buy pants just for the top-stitched detail on the back pockets.)

Cool pocket

I discovered early on that bags for tablets require lots of material -- more than the legs of typical adult-size jeans provide. At first, I used jeans maxi skirts, which usually are big enough to make 2 bags. But these are harder to find and not always the best quality.

I've found a couple of ways to make the narrower legs of pants work. One is to put the inseam right in the center of bag.

Inseam front and center

Another solution I stumbled onto is to combine the denim with a different kind of material, usually patterned. In this bag, I combined jeans with fleece from a fun pink and brown girl's animal print skirt.

Solution to problem of narrow jeans legs

Here's the finished bag. I'm really happy that I was able to turn a problem into an even better product. As Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn would say, it was my "make it work" moment.

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