Okay, so this whole “denim bottega” thing started pretty randomly. I was just scrolling, you know, looking at stuff online, and saw some pictures. Not sure if it was actually Bottega doing denim weave, or maybe just someone’s cool DIY project. But the idea stuck in my head: woven denim, like that fancy intrecciato leather stuff they do.
Getting Started
So I thought, hey, I could try that. Seemed simple enough, right? Just cut strips and weave ’em. I had a couple of old pairs of jeans lying around, the ones that don’t fit anymore but you keep anyway. Perfect candidates, I figured. Save some money, recycle, all that good stuff.
First job was getting the denim ready. I grabbed my sharpest scissors and a ruler. Man, cutting denim straight is a pain. Especially old, worn denim. It stretches weirdly. I wanted strips, maybe like an inch wide? Started cutting up one leg. Took ages. My hand was cramping up pretty bad by the end of just one leg.
The Weaving Part – Or Trying To
Alright, got a pile of denim strips. They looked kinda messy, fraying at the edges already. But okay, onward. I cleared off my kitchen table and laid out some strips vertically. Then I started trying to weave the horizontal ones through. Over, under, over, under.
Here’s where things got tricky. Denim is thick. Way thicker than leather strips, I guess. And it’s soft. Trying to weave them tightly was almost impossible. The strips kept bunching up, or leaving big gaps. It didn’t look tight and neat like the pictures. It looked… lumpy. And the fraying edges were catching on everything. Total mess.
- Tried cutting thinner strips. Helped a bit, but they frayed even worse.
- Tried ironing the strips with starch. Made them stiffer, which was slightly better for weaving, but still bulky.
- Tried using some fabric glue stick at the intersections. Just got sticky and messy.
I spent a whole afternoon on this, feeling more and more frustrated. This wasn’t the sleek, cool look I had in my head. It was looking like a kindergartener’s craft project.
A Small Victory, Kinda
I almost gave up. But then I decided to scale down. Forget making a bag or anything big. Let’s just make a small square, like a coaster or a patch. I picked the best-looking strips, trimmed the frays as much as I could, and really took my time. I used pins to hold things down as I went. Slow work.
Eventually, I managed to get a small woven square done. Maybe 4×4 inches. It’s definitely… handmade looking. You can tell it’s denim, and you can tell it’s woven. But it’s not exactly Bottega, you know? It’s chunky, a bit uneven. I decided to sew around the edges to stop it from completely falling apart.
What I Reckon Now
So, the denim bottega experiment. Was it a success? Well, I made something. It sits on my desk now, holding my coffee mug. It’s a reminder. Mostly a reminder that some things look easier than they are. Cutting and weaving denim like that is tough work. You really appreciate the skill that goes into the real woven leather stuff after trying something like this.
It was kinda fun, in a frustrating way. Used up some old jeans. Didn’t cost anything but time and a bit of sanity. Would I do it again? Probably not with denim. Maybe very thin leather strips sometime? Who knows. For now, I’ll stick to admiring the real deal from afar. Making it is harder than it looks.
