Recycled Ruffled Jean Skirt: Creating the Skirt Yoke

 Here is how to create the top yoke of your

 Recycled Ruffled Jean Skirt

1.  Cut open the inner seam on the jeans pants.

 Don't unpick the seam...just cut!

 2. Now unpick the stitches in the crouch seam, just below the zipper, in the front. Unpick the stitches in the back to just below the pocket bottoms. 

In this example, I left the curve in the center front seam below the zipper.

3.  Now. to create a flat yoke, overlap the top seam over the second side of the pants front. This seam can be left curved, or you can fold the edge under and straighten out the curved seam. You will be resewing this seam again with "jeans thread."  I bought my jean's thread at Hobby Lobby. It's a thicker top-stitching thread in the familiar golden yellow color.  

The process is the same on the pants front and pants back.

(I should have used a little longer stitch length on the example shown above.)

Pants Front.  Sewing from the zipper down.

4.  Next, I placed the pants on the ironing board so the fabric could lay flat.  I measured down from the waistband to calculate the widest yoke that I could obtain from that particular pant.

 This size Toddler 5 pants measurement was 6 3/4 inches.

5.  Using a deep purple marking pen, I marked that same measurement,  6 3/4 inches, all around the jean front and back. 

As you can see, that measurement went through the bottom of the pocket. Don't worry about the front or back pocket, because the first ruffle seam will encase the bottom of the pocket.

6.  Using the purple line as your guide, zig-zag around the pants front and back.  Then cut off the excess fabric below the zig-zag.  
In the two examples pictured above, the top jeans yoke is finished with a serged edge, and the bottom example has a zig-zagged edge. They both work well.

On this example, I straighten out the seam below the zipper and then resewed the seam.

Your yoke is now ready for the bottom ruffles.

Click HERE to go back to the main blog post on sewing a Ruffled Jean Skirt.
Smiles,
Deborah