upcycle jean bags

My daughter had an old pair of jeans that no longer fit and had holes in the knees, and as they had a lot of embroidered butterflies on them, I decided to make her a purse out of them. I cut the legs off, turned them inside out, and sewed across the leg openings. As the material is denim and quite thick, and as the crotch part is an odd shape, I had to fiddle a bit to get it to work properly. Here is the finished product.

 I let her pick out the material from my material stash and this is the one she chose. 
It looks like a sky with clouds so suits the butterflies really well, don't you think?

 The next step was adding a handle. I used 2 strands of embroidery floss, which she picked out, to crochet the handle. There was a bit of miscommunication on our parts; she wanted stripes and I thought she meant across, but after it was done she informed me she meant length-wise like a Rainbow! I did offer to redo it, but she said it was ok and that she liked it anyway:0)

 

 Attaching the handles was the tricky part. I crocheted the handle in sc, 6 sc across. First I worked several rows of sc. Then I worked 2 sc, ch 2, fed the skein of floss through the belt loop, then worked the last 2 single crochet. for the next row, I turned, then worked the first 2 sc, worked 2 sc over the ch 2, then fed the skein of floss through the belt loop again, and worked the last 2 sc. Then I had to repeat the whole process again to finish off on top of the belt loop. Doing it this way, I ended up with a bar of crochet behind the loop so the handle should be pretty secure.

 

 

 I'm thinking of making another handle and attaching it on the 2 front belt loops as well for added stability when carrying the purse. Maybe I could make them in the longer Rainbow stripes?... There was some embroidery left on the legs as well, maybe I will make a matching change purse...  She still has a few more old pairs of jeans with embroidery and embellishments...more purses anyone? :0)