I found this plain ribbed silk sweater at the thrift store and spiffed it up with denim strips from inseams and hems of black jeans.

This was a pair of badly worn jeans with all sizes of scraps slapped together in a skirt shape.  I left the edges unfinished so I would get a lot of fraying when it's washed.

I'm still trying to deplete my denim stash.  This put a pretty good dent in it, but I've still got a way to go....  I'm not letting myself buy any more thrift-store jeans until my denim bin gets to half full and I'm having thrift-store withdrawal.

Front:



Back:

I was going to do a regular horse, but then I found bits of zebra striped fabric in my stash while looking for a suitable horse color.  His mane is the same fabric doubled over and ruffled so it will stand up and the ruffle along the bottom is some black & white striped taffeta I found at the thrift store (11 1/2 yards for $1.50 - that's under 8¢ a yard and I'm still gloating).



And the back...

It's a rainy, dreary day so I needed to do something with bright cheerful colors.  The cat looks a little too cheerful though.  I think he's been into the catnip.
This was a pair of thrift store jeans turned into a skirt with a ruffle of several different cotton print remnants.



And the back...

This is made of scraps from several pairs of old jeans.  The "hairball" is made up of strips from hems and inseams stitched together in the center and run through a wash cycle.  The bag is constructed like one of those fold-over clutch things but I've added loops sticking out of the side seams about halfway down for attaching the shoulder strap.

Denim from two pairs of old jeans and some thrift store upholstery remnants turned into a lined tote.  Lining is from a pair of tan thrift store twill trousers.  I'm trying to reduce my denim stash - this didn't put much of a dent in it, but it was fun to make even though I had to do math  .

You know how you cut off the hems on a pair of jeans when you're making them into something else?  Well, I couldn't bring myself to throw them out and so I had this whole bag of them and it seemed like it was time to do something with them.  So after a couple hours with the seam ripper (and numerous oopses requiring band-aids), I had enough to do the collar on this denim vest I got at the thrift store yesterday (they were having a bag sale - I was so excited).  I sewed strips of hem to a collar-shaped piece of denim and then hand-stitched the finished "fur" piece to the collar of the vest (more band-aids).  It was pretty cool-looking, but I had to wash it to get all the blood off and the dryer did some interesting things to it.  It sort of looks like blue dreads now.  The dryer lint was kind of interesting, too.  I'm saving it for a paper-making experiment.

I found several pairs of jeans in the thrift store 50¢ bin and snapped them up.  I turned this black pair of Levi's into a skirt, added an uneven, tattered, tiered ruffle and put grommets where the left side seam was for a leather bootlace.

I couldn't believe the jeans - two or three pair look like they've never even been washed, and for only 50¢.  They were stick-person sizes, this one is a 4, which is probably what's causing that odd look on my daughter's face in the pix.

Two lined drawstring tarot card bags.  Another way to use leftover fabric & one-of-a-kind beads.

This isn't a 100% faithful reproduction.  The vintage skirts had to be made out of actual Levi's bell-bottoms and, of course, patterned denim was unavailable at that time.  Indeed, pre-washed denim was a '70s innovation.  But I think I've captured the basic style...