Bleach stains? What bleach stains?

Confession time: I am a lady of bottled, carbonated enthusiasm. Shake me up the right way and I’m frothing all over the place.

So on a hot summer night, I offered my throat (no, not to the wolf with the red roses) to the bar offering free alcohol. And, well, I took the dye right outta my pants.

CRINGE

I worked so hard on those jeans!

 I bundled these up for a few months before deciding what to do. Had these been RTW jeans, I may well have admitted defeat and sent them to the recycling pile. If they had been a crappy make, their fate would have been similar. But these were pretty darn good, they weren’t even particularly worn out yet. They were struck down in their prime!

Being a stubborn sewist who doesn’t like seeing her makes go to waste, the only option was to fix them. And fix them so that I would wear them again. No cut-off shorts, no cliché miniskirts.

My first idea was to go heavy on the appliqué and embroidery. Huge patches of layering and coloration and textures. But I did a few hours of work and wasn’t loving it. Sure, it was probably fine, but that’s not enough to make me want to wear the jeans regularly. I was also not very excited to work on it each time. Coming up with 10-15 ideas to coordinate is quite tiring. So I packed the jeans away again.
 

After starting the stencils, before removing the needlework

A few more months passed and I entertained ideas of re-dyeing the entire pair of jeans, or adding additional bleach deliberately (*cue raised eyebrows*). But the former felt like it would end up ugly, and the latter made me worry that the new bleach wouldn’t complement the existing stains if I tried to apply it sober (*cue more raised eyebrows*).

Turns out, I like the bleachy bits. The fringing is a beautify bright orange-y colour and the blotches have a wonderful dappled continuity. And my left leg is still completely plain.
So how about stencilling?

People pay good money for painted jeans...

I paid a visit to Henny Donovan Motif and picked out some blossoms and paint. I already had several components of a colour palette on the jeans, so instead of trying to hide them, I could supplement them.

Trying out stencils for the first time!

Now, I tried doing a few stencils with no adhesive and a makeup sponge, but that went pretty badly. I then got hold of some repositionable spray mount and a paintbrush. And, since we were ankle-deep in winter, I had to do some work out in the snow.

Spray glue in the snow

But! I loved working on this! For my first time stencilling (and one something that can’t be laid flat), I had a lot of fun. And I’m pretty happy with the result. I have definitely worn these quite a bit and though the jeans now play a slightly different role in my wardrobe, I’m so happy to have them back in circulation.

Until next time,
K