Goodbye, jeans! Hello, cocktails

I made my first pants re-use item. Remember, I am ceasing to wear pants, and so I was going to upcycle all my old pants and shorts. I do not exactly have sewing skills so finding an initial project was a challenge. But I did it!

I made a Denim Ice Crushing Bag. The inspiration came from online. From the site The Kitchn.

The recipe required a minimum of sewing which, any normal person would use a sewing machine, but I could not get either of my sewing machines to start, so I hand-sewed it. That is my handiwork up above.

I sewed it out on the porch, in my long dress. I felt a little nostalgic, I have to say, cutting up these old jeans. They were vintage Calvin Kleins and they had been with me a long time and let me tell you this, they fit me again after all these years, and I looked pretty good in them, too. But they were ripped -- naturally and unfortunately, not on purpose the way all these fake ripped jeans are. I am really not a ripped jeans person. Plus I am hereafter not wearing pants. So, goodbye jeans.

Hello ice crushing bag!

Do read the little writeup on the Kitchn. It is funny. Plus the bag was a present. I gave it to the priest who advised that we stop wearing pants. A bunch of us gals got together and decided we would give him something made out of our now-cast-off garments. We have been laughing and laughing over it. The challenge in this situation, of course, is to find some craft that is not girly. Googling around you can find a million things to make out of your old jeans but most of them are girly.

My friend Amy made the priest a beer caddy. Well, her daughter sewed it. They are amazing and my ice-crushing bag had nothing on the beer caddy. The beer caddy even came with a Buffalo bottle opener! They fitted it out with one.

Impressive as the beer caddy is, I think the ice crushing bag should prove extremely useful.

I am going to make myself one! Out of the other leg.

Cheers!