DIY: Minimally Distressed Jorts

Looking to shake up the look of this pristine pair of slightly high-waisted jean shorts that I had thrifted, it was only natural that I destroy them. Don't get me wrong-- I love a clean denim just as much as the next girl because of its versatility, but this pair felt just a little too stiff.

In my opinion, distressed jeans look much better in faded, light colors (it better correlates with the worn-in vibe), but these jorts didn't come out half bad. I wasn't going for the grunge look where the innards of the jeans basically just spill out of one of the many gaping holes, but you can always take it to the next level and give it that skeleton rib-y shredded look. I was aiming for a weathered look, like a broken in baseball glove.

Materials: jeans, scissors, tweezers, pumice stone/ sandpaper (optional)

Make two parallel incisions (cut to your desired size of the "shred") on the wrong side of the jean. I decide to  make the shredded part right where the pocket is only so I could ensure that no skin would show.

The jean material has white threads that run horizontally and blue threads that run vertically, and when weaved together, they make diagonal stripes. From the incision, you expose the threads. Take your tweezers and carefully extract a blue thread. The first thread is the hardest part (though not very difficult at all), and then the rest should come out easily.

You can see the "shred" forming.

Use a pumice stone or sand paper to roughen up the shred.

Add some other distress details by cutting small random holes in places and going over it with a pumice stone  or by cutting a tiny, tiny bit of the edge of pockets, legs, etc. (without cutting the stitching) and scraping the stone along the raw edge of the jean.

El fin.

Also, a little music while you work isn't such a bad idea :)

-Kimberly-