First Beautiful Botanical Embroidery Bag-from-Jeans

I have lost 22 kg over the last 9 months. Mostly I am wearing the same clothes, in some cases modified. One pair of 3/4 length jeans reached a point where they fell down, and a belt didn't work well. I considered giving them to a charity, but decided I'd rather recycle them another way. 

I cut the legs off as tubes and then the body part along the side seams. Folding the back in half along the back seam will give me a bag with pockets, using the waist band as the bag top. The front is then cut into strips to form handles.

I am going to use adaptations of some of the motifs from this book on all three bags. For the first bag, I'm using a version of the design on the front cover.

Once I was sure I couldn't trace on to this weight of cloth, I tried a couple of different pens, settling in the end for an archive one. I drew them by hand, enlarging them to fit the shape I had. 

I chose my hoop size to fit the large motif on the bottom corner, and assembled a bundle of threads I thought might work.   

       

I used a  variegated perle 5 thread for the large bloom. I love the opportunity to use acquired specialty threads in projects like this. It used the whole skein.

Here is the finished side. I considered whether to leave the other side plain, but settled on a spray of leaves and blooms, still from the Botanical Embroidery book, in white on the other side. 

I'm using a No 3 Twilley's Stalite cotton, which gives a good coverage and texture.

It took three moves of the hoop and a few touch ups on the edges to finish. The denim has stretch in it which seemed to help in maintaining tension.

A single strap was enough and I lined it with some spotted cotton from my stash. It required a join - but no hassle (believe it or not, it has been ironed, though not with my steam iron. Never was much of an ironer!)

Here's the finished product, back and front. I am delighted with the result and am looking forward to making the next one - this time a night scene with owl.