Sewing denim and fraying - some advice please!

[Miaou]

Just clearing out dd2's wardrobe and she has two denim pinafores and a denim skirt she has outgrown. I am considering cutting them into squares and making a patchwork skirt. I wondered about making it with the frayed edges on the outside, just as an experiment, but am wondering if it will fray right back to the seams and therefore fall apart when washed? Anyone any experience of denim doing this - would I be mad trying to do it without overlocking the edges first?

I think a stright stitch where you want it to fray would do the job

Eg run a line of stitching above where you want to to fray, and then fray it.

As a textiles teacher we had an exam paper on denim a few years ago, and we loked at this technique quite closely

how about a twin needle to run a double line of stitching for the seam? (i have a twin neeedle for pintucking but have never actually used it so this is all theoretical ) also you may find you need a heavier weight needle for denim. in general when i work with denim i dread overlapping seams where you have 4/8/more layers to get through, so would avoid adding extra seams anywhere it wasn't strictly necessary, but i'm sure it's doable with patience and hand cranking over the thickest bits.

puppy, that's another reason why I thought that the frayed look might be advantageous - I could avoid having to sew through several layers of fabric that way! Fizzbuzz, yes I did wonder about stitching round each piece before assembling them (thought I might get the cheese grater out on the finished skirt to do the fraying rather than doing it before assembly - do you think that would work?)

And heavy duty needle is deffo a good idea!

(All theoretical atm as I have to finish a blanket before I start making anything else!)

Yes, that's what I meant. Wish I could draw a diagram!
1)cut denim to right size
2)Stitch around edge of patch about 1cm in (or however long you want your frayed bits to be)
3) Fray them (now, as a veteran of the 80's and those lovely ripped jeans, I would say that would be the most time consuming job of all!)

I would deffo do fraying before assembly

ooh, you think fraying before? I wondered if all the bits would get in the way and do my head in

Alternatively I wondered if washing the garment after construction would make it fray?

The cheese grater thing is just a guess from when I worked in telly and wardrobe would use one to "rough up" garments that looked too new! No idea if it would work though!

Yes they might, hadn't thought about that, but if you frayed first you would be able to see clearly what looked good and what didn't

Washing to roughen them up is an ace idea