Sewing a pair of trousers - considering practicalities, sentimentalities, and also sustainability!

For several years, my favorite trousers were a pair of rather loosely fitted, green linnen pants my mother once bought for me. I used them a lot. After a while, they started getting scruffy and were only fit to wear while working in the garden or just relaxing alone at home. At the end, the holes were so big they barely held together (I definitely couldn't leave the house with them, as my private parts were showing!), and this summer I decided to scrap them for good.

I tried long and hard to find a decent picture of these pants, to show you... all I could find was this one, of me working in the garden one really hot summer day. Not the prettiest, but you get the point.

Though these pants certainly weren't wasted (being in use for so long!) I still found myself hesitant to just throw them out. So I decided to take them apart, seam by seam, and make a pattern out of them to use for a new pair of trousers. So that's what I've done during the past few evenings, and all that's left to do at this point is sew on the zipper and the waistline. 

I love this little project for so many reasons! 1, I know the fit will be great since they're based on my old pants which fit perfectly. 2, the fabric (a very thin, dark grey wool) is lovely! And 3, actually using the scraps of an old garment to create new ones is one small step towards small scale sustainability! Of course I will also save the pattern together with the original pieces for future sewing, this probably wont be the last time I use them. 

Now if I can just figure out how to handle the zipper... I bought the smallest one they had in the store, which was 15 cm, but that still turned out to be about twice the length I needed. So I am wondering if it's actually possible to cut the zipper in half... some way... without it looking a mess. Do you have any idea? Any ideas are greatly appreciated!