Diy wool insoles

Winter is coming and it's better to be prepared. Some wool insoles for your shoes will keep your feet warm. 

They are very easy to make yourself. 

 I used an old wool blanket.

If you don't have one you can often find them in thrift stores. It doesn't have to be pretty as they will be inside your shoes.

Or if you have a felted sweater it will work fine too.

You don't need a sewing machine, but it's much faster. 

A quick search on Google I saw wool insoles at a price range from 100 - 400 Norwegian kroner [ 12 - 47us$]  So you can easily save a few dollars if you make them yourself.

Cut 4 pieces from the wool blanket. 

I used another pair of insoles to draw a pattern. 

Putting 2 pieces together and sew them together around the edge. I used my serger, but a regular sewing machine work fine. Use Zigzag stitch around the edge. 

You can also hand stitch using blanket stitch. 

Then sew a few seams through both layers and you have a lovely pair of warm insoles for winter. 

If you don't want them to slide around in your shoes you can use an extra layer of non slippery fabric or add a few stripes of hot glue with a glue gun. 

Adding length to jeans part 2

 

This method doesn't need any cutting in the jeans so even easier than the first one. 

You can actually just add a piece of lace or ribbon at the bottom of the jeans. 

Unfortunately all the lace I had that me and my sister thought looked good wasn't wide enough. 

So I cut two pieces of fabric 8cm high and as wide as the jeans legs and a little bit for seam allowance. 

Folding them double, then sewing them together making two pieces of 3.5cm 

You can use only a piece of fabric as well, but I think this looks better. 

Now I'm adding the lace to the bottom of this strip of fabric 

I wasn't thinking about adding anything else, but wasn't happy about how it looked. 

Remembered I had some cool gold Zigzag ribbon and decided to add it over the lace 

Then sewing them together in the side 

Now it's just to sew them to the bottom of the jeans 

I decided to hand stitch to make it invisible on the outside. 

I stitched in the top of the hem making sure it's not visible at the front. 

 

I'm quite happy with this pair as well. 

How to add extra length to a pair of jeans

 

My sister has very long legs and never seems to find well fitting jeans or trousers.

So when she got two pairs of jeans passed on to her, she asked me if I could help.

Of course I could, it even sounds like a lot of fun to me. 

I'll show you how to add length to jeans or trousers here. 

The first pair I added a extra piece of fabric into the leg. 

First I ironed the jeans as it is important that it's a clean cut. Then measured where to cut and how much. Marking it with a dissolveing fabric marker. 

Carefully cut off the bottom of the jeans 

Find some fabric similar to the jeans 

I have used fabric from another pair of jeans that were donated to me. 

If you have some that fit perfectly just cut out the entire piece. Mine didn't so I made 4 pices an sewed to and two together. 

Open up the side seams of the jeans you are adding length to. 

This will make it easier to add the extra fabric. You don't need to open it up all the way, just a little bit, both at the bottom and the top of where you cut the jeans 

Sew the new pieces to the jeans 

Trim off excess fabric so it will fit the legs 

Sew the cut off bottom of the leg to your added piece of fabric 

If you only want a piece of fabric, you can close the side seams and you are done. 

This works well for sweat pants and children's trousers. 

But I don't think it's particularly good for women who don't get long enough jeans. 

You want something that looks good right. 

So my plan was to hide it under some ribbons. 

Making some really fancy jeans for my little sister 

I tried different ribbons and lace until I found something I was satisfied with 

Pinning the first one in place, the rest I just put next to the other. 

Make sure you get the ribbon at the exact same place on the other leg and repeat the process 

When the ribbons are all in place, close the side seams and you are done 

Close up of the finished leg 

I think this one turned out pretty well 

My sister was very happy with them and think this definitely will be next years fashion 🤔 

Jeans are now about 7 cm longer 

And fitted my sister perfectly. 

Check out part 2 for how I altered the second pair