Your Autograph Please!

A New Use For Jeans

As my daughter’s freshman year of high school was winding down, she decided that having her friends just sign her yearbook wasn’t enough. She wanted to have all their autographs together. Did she get a nice autograph book? No! She wanted to use something more creative.

She carefully chose just the right pair of jeans to wear on the last day of school and loaded her pocket with a Sharpie or two. Then all day she had her friends sign her jeans. When she came home, her jeans were a treasured keepsake. She had signatures up and down the legs. They looked fantastic.

I don’t know exactly what qualification she uses when choosing the jeans: they maybe her favorites or ones she is about to grow out of. But she has something special that she can keep forever. And her friend will always remember too.

So put on a pair of jeans, pull out a Sharpie, and choose your signing friends carefully.

Levi Strauss the Inventor of Trousers called Denim Jeans

Jeans history would be nothing without Levi Strauss. Levi Strauss is credited with inventing jeans. Levi Strauss emigrated with his family to New York in 1847. His family sold dry goods such as canvas tenting and Manchester drapery goods. He moved to San Francisco in the early 1850s because he thought the same dry goods business would be brisk, because of the California gold rush.

About 20 years later, a solvent Levi Strauss and a Nevada tailor joined forces to patent an idea the tailor had for putting rivets on stress points of workman's waist high overalls, commonly known as jeans. Levi Strauss chose to use the stronger denim fabric and cotton duck, putting his own name on the product. Later the duck fabric was dropped as consumers found denim more comfortable, particularly after washing. Washing creates the faded bloom on the indigo blue dyeing that we all love.

Eventually in the 1950s people asked for denim jeans or just as often - Levi's jeans, rather than waist overalls. Other manufacturers began to produce jeans. Other brand names such as Lee Coopers and Wranglers also became famous. Each brand is renowned for having a particular cut.

This information comes from fashion-era.com.

Where did "jeans" come from?

The word “jeans” is thought to have come from “Genoese” the name for Italian sailors of Genoa. These sailors dressed in a blue fustian fabric that was made from a cotton and wool or linen. The Genoese fabric was imported to Britain as far back as the 16th century.

“In the 19th century, American weavers made hard wearing cotton duck, denim and jeans fabrics to satisfy a home market. At some time, some manufacturers must have replaced the yarns with the locally produced, more readily available cotton making the fabrics all cotton.”
http://www.fashion-era.com/denim_jeans_and_casual_wear.htm

What is Denim?

Webster's says: "a firm durable twilled usually cotton fabric woven with colored warp and white filling threads."

Webster also says, Jeans: "Short for jean fusion, a durable twilled cotton cloth especially for sportswear and work clothes."

"The word “jeans” is thought to have come from a type of material, called “jean” that was round in the 1600’s. The material was named after sailors from Genoa in Italy, because they wore clothes made from it. The word 'denim' probably came from the name of a French material, “serge de nimes” - serge (a kind of material) from Nimes (a town in France)." (http://www.nzgirl.co.nz/articles/2577)

I think jeans are an American pastime. We live in Jeans. Can you imagine life without jeans or denim? I shudder to think.

Some people literally live in Jeans. They wear nothing else. Others are forced to wear other clothing for work, but quickly jump into their Jeans when they get home. I'm lucky because I can choose. When I wear something other than Jeans or Denim and then put on a pair of Jeans, it's like coming home to an old friend. Aahhh.

Jeans are comfortable (If you get the correct size and fit). When I was in high school, the style for Jeans was the tighter the better. If your Jeans weren't at least two sizes too small for you, they were too big. We shrank our Jeans to make them tighter. We would have to lay on the ground and suck in our stomach to zip them. What were we thinking? We should all be paraplegics from the lack of circulation. We really did Jeans and ourselves a disservice. They were meant to be comfortable.

You can work and play in Jeans. You can dress down in Jeans and you can dress up in Jeans. Without Denim I don't think there would be the phenomenon of Jeans. Would there have been another cloth or clothing that we would love as much? I don't think so.

Jeans have always made a fashion statement. And you can do anything in them.

What do Jeans/Denim mean to you?

Denim: An Overview

New crafts with old jeans. Recycle. Reuse.

Jeans are an American icon. They are our favorite article of clothing. Durable. Comfortable. Casual. They make a statement. We live in jeans. We work in jeans. We play in jeans. We dress up in jeans. We go in search of the perfect pair. We all have our favorite pair of jeans and mourn their passing. We hold on to them long after they should be retired.

But don’t throw out your old, worn-out jeans. Give them a second life.

Make a keepsake.

Reuse them until there is not a thread left.

I have been making "new" things out old jeans for years. I make quilts, purses and anything else I can think of (and I can think of a LOT) out of my old jeans, my kids' jeans, and anyone else's jeans I can get a hold of. I have piles and piles of jeans.

On this blog, I'm going to share some fun facts about jeans and simple projects. I'm in the process of proposing a series of craft books with over 100 things to make from old wornout jeans.