Upcycling An Old Jeans Into A Corset Top

Hello everyone, I’m so excited today because of what I’m about to show you all. I'm not even selective with the clothes I wear, but how I have owned this jeans for four years and hated them is funny. I don't waste things, and I also don't give out things I don't like. After so long, I finally upcycled it into a corset top.

I’ve been wanting a denim corset top for an upcoming denim on denim event. So seeing that jeans got me thinking and then I decided to transform it into a top. Although I’ve crocheted a corset top before, I’ve never sewn one and had no idea how I was even going to go about it.

I started searching on corset tops and realized they had complicated drafting. I sat down for about three hours trying to understand those patterns and still got lost but I didn’t want to give up. I asked @glorydee about those lines in a corset top and she explained it to me.
I took my chances and started drafting on a paper. I didn’t even have a large paper so I joined two papers together for this work.

I used an old corset top for reference. I put it on the paper and then traced the outline on it. I then marked the lines and made the designs on the paper.

When I finished tracing it, I cut it from the paper and cut the parts of the corset. Using the drafts, I cut the parts from the jeans one by one and then got the full corset top. I made sure to cut it in such a way that there would be enough allowance on it. I learned from my mistakes and wasn’t ready to let this go wrong.

I then used pins to put them together to make it easy for me to sew them.

I sewed them together starting with the front parts and then did the back too before sewing front and back together.

I didn’t plan on using a zipper but I realized it would be very difficult to put on a corset top with no zipper so I added a zipper at the back.

I then folded the edges to also prevent it from fraying. The bottom part of the top was a bit irregular so I used thread and needle to correct it.

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Gallery

I was happy when I was I done and very proud that I could transform the same jeans that I’ve hated for years to something I love. The moment my mom saw it, she said “eii so nothing really is wasted in your hands” and that made me laugh. Yes, nothing is wasted in my hands as an environmentalist in the creative space. This was a really fun project and I enjoyed every bit of it.

I thought it was going to be hard but it wasn’t at all. I used about 3 hours to complete the top and looking at the result, it was worth every minute. Thank you for your time.

Images are mine