How to Make Jeans Into Skinny Jeans for 12 Year Olds

Fads change. Twelve-year-olds love to be on the cutting edge of all of them. When the style changes from regular jeans to skinny jeans, resist the urge to overspend by buying a new pair. Use your basic sewing skills to make an existing pair of jeans into skinny jeans for your 12-year-old. Without adjusting the waist and seat of the jeans, create skinny jeans by altering the legs only, taking a flared- or straight-leg and narrowing it to make a skinny leg.

Things You'll Need

• Seam ripper
• Scissors
• Safety pins
• Fabric marker
• Sewing machine
• Heavy-duty thread and needles
• Iron and ironing board

Instructions

1. Ask the 12-year-old to try on the jeans, and use safety pins to mark the legs where they need to be narrower. Have her take the jeans off with the safety pins in place on each leg.

2. Turn the jeans inside out. Rip out the inner leg seam stitching using the seam ripper, keeping the crotch stitching intact, until the legs are open but pinned in place with safety pins where applicable. Remove loose threads.

3. Stitch the legs inside out with heavy-duty denim thread along a line parallel and close to the safety pins until the stitching reaches the crotch seam.

4. Trim the inner leg seam to five-eighths inch using the scissors. Press the seam flat using an iron and ironing board. Turn the legs right-side-in. Try the jeans on and alter as necessary for fit.

Tips & Warnings

• Twelve-year-olds often experience growth spurts that can render skinny jeans obsolete. Only alter jeans that already fit, and plan on keeping them only a few months during adolescent growth spurts.

• Use safety pins instead of straight sewing pins while the child tries on the jeans. Using safety pins prevents sticks as the child takes the jeans on and off.

References

• "Sewing for Dummies"; Janice Saunders Maresh; 1999

Resources

• Ohioline: Selecting Jeans