Big Bows & Bell Bottoms [DIY Birkin Denim Jeans & Burda Denim Maxi Coat]

So, I read somewhere that January was denim month, I don't know if it's true or not but I playing along here. As you all may know that denim is my thang and I love to sew it, wear it and re-fashion it every chance I get. I am going to try and cram as many DIY denim posts this month as I can.

My first DIY denim for January is this Ode' to Alice & Olivia a DIY denim maxi coat and DIY denim jeans. I saw these amazing jeans with embroidered flowers all up and down the legs and I was smitten. Now since there was no way I was doing all that embroidery by hand and I am not well versed in embroidery on my machine, I did the next best thing. I bought a few embroidered iron-on patches! Brilliant right???? I thought so.

I Googled and found a few winners on Etsy but weren't that cheap. I bought 3 large flower patches for this project and they were $22.99 each plus $8.00 for shipping. [That's not cheap to me but I needed them so I bought them] If this is something your interested in, check Amazon because they have some that were cheaper than these, of course I found this little bit of information too late but I know where to check next time. Oh and before you ask the question, the denim fabric was from Joann's. If you didn't get this tie-dye denim when they had it you missed out! I have a lighter shade as well.

Now I had to figure out a way that I was going to sew these babies on my fabric. They said they were iron-on but I'm guessing unless I had a professional heat transfer they were not iron-on! I went out and bought three different adhesives for this task because I didn't know what was going to work. I stopped with the first product because it worked like a charm. I used Dritz Liquid Stitch Adhesive. This process was tedious and it took a while. You have to glue all the parts down and then sew them. After figuring out how to apply the first patch the last twp went a little smoother and it was worth it!

Allrighty let's talk about the patterns that I used and how I hacked them. The Big Bow is a tie-on DIY that you have seen before. [if it ain't broke them you don't fix it] For the jeans I used my favorite jean pattern the Birkin Flare pattern, I just added more flare to the already flared bottoms to make bell bottoms. It ain't for everybody but it was my vision for these jeans. [I may take away some of the flare after this post, although I love it, I think Mori would like them better with a little less flare and a little tighter.] For the jacket I started with Burda young 7018 I just added the maxi coat length with a little flare to each panel. I also added tabs on each side, just for decoration.

So there you have it folks, parches can work for your designs. I got a few more patch designs coming up for ya. We're going to close this post with a little Robot for ya! You see these are the pics that we usually don't post but she kept doing it and I told her to stop soooooo this is what she gets!