DIY: Bootcut Jeans To Boyfriend Jeans

Hi everyone!

On my last thrift store visit, I found and bought 3 pairs of jeans on sale that I wanted to wear as boyfriend jeans. When I arrived at home however, I realized that one of them was a straight leg style, and the other two were bootcut! After trying both styles on, I realized that I liked the straight leg style of boyfriend jeans more because it looked more tapered and crisp when I rolled the ends up. When I rolled the ends up for the bootcut jeans, it looked too wide for my liking.

Thus, I will be showing you how I sewed a pair of bootcut jeans to transform into straight leg boyfriend jeans!
(Note: I am a sewing newbie, I only know the basics of how to work a machine. Please don’t be harsh! And please ignore my extremely baggy shirt, I was in my lounging-at-home pajamas.)

The materials you will need are:

• A pair of jeans to fix
• A pair of jeans as reference
• Sewing machine and thread
• Pins
• Seam ripper
• Scissors
• A writing utensil

These are the pair of bootcut jeans that I will be fixing. They only cost $4 and are Tommy Hilfiger brand! As you can see, the jeans begin to slowly flare outwards from the knees downwards.

The first thing I did was flip the bootcut jeans inside out. I then straightened the outer edge of the leg so that it was flat. Then I placed my reference pair of jeans on top and made sure to align the crotch area and the inner edge of the leg. It then looked like the picture on the left. I used white chalk to trace the outline that the straight leg jeans made. Afterwards, I removed the reference jeans and reinforced the two layers of the leg by pinning it down along the line. This is shown by the picture on the right.

Afterwards, I moved to the sewing machine. I changed the settings to straight stitch, with a stitch length of 4. This allows me to try on the pants without getting poked by pins, and will be easy to unstitch for any adjustments. I sewed on the white chalk line that I had drawn, removing the pins along the way.

This was my first trial. My left leg is the unaltered one, and my right leg is the sewn one. By looking straight on, the difference is subtle since the alteration is not fully straight yet. However, from the side, it is more evident that it is less chunky at the bottom! It was nice seeing some progress, but I still needed to take out more of the bootcut shape.

I continued to adjust my alternation to suit my preference. I ended up making the angle more drastic in other to remove more of the flare. Once I have a final measurement to follow, I redrew a line with my writing utensil to highlight the final path that I will sew on. If you have too many previous lines, I would recommend using a different writing utensil like a pen to avoid confusion! Once my final line was marked, I used my seam ripper to remove all the stitches I have made on the pants. I changed my sewing machine settings to straight stitch with a stitch length of 1.5. I then sewed twice along the line to ensure that it would not rip! Once I was done, I cut off the excess jean. I left around 2.5cm of excess along the edge of the stitch. Afterwards, I did the same thing on the other leg. It becomes easier because you can simply use your first completed leg to mark and trace the shape to alter on the second leg.

And finally, this is what my final product looks like!

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results! :)
Wearing them down does not look too bulky as it previously did, and rolling them up looks more streamlined than before! In the beginning of the post, I said that I bought 3 pairs of jeans. I wanted to try distressing a pair to make distressed boyfriend jeans, and that will probably be my next DIY project using these jeans. Stay tuned for it!

If anyone has any questions about the steps, please leave a comment and I will try my very best to help you!