Experiments with denim--opinions please!

Michelle and I were emailing the other day (before the desert claimed her) about fall fashion, she brought up a blurb from Robert Geller that she had run across in a NY Times article about the very same topic:

"ROBERT GELLER, designer I’m excited to get back to layering. One of my favorite things about cooler weather is that you can build up an outfit piece by piece and put together something really interesting — such as finishing up a look with a nice big scarf. I’m also looking forward to seeing denim used in a non-typical way this fall as well as a return to beautifully constructed coats that are well made and designed to last a long time."

In Michelle's brain, this triggered a thought process which culminated in the utterance, "denim obi!" Oddly enough, the same idea had been bouncing about this illiterati's brain (why don't I read the Times more often?), though I hadn't yet busted out the sewing machine. Thus, out came the denim scraps and now I have a four-panel strip of denim which is about eight feet long and five to six inches wide. 

Enter another problem: How do I pull this off without looking like a girl wearing a pair of pants around her waist?

I will obviously do something to treat the edges of the denim, but will it be a simple once-over hem, or should I use some accent color bias tape? My machine (and needle) can only handle a once-over (that just means that I would fold the denim over once and sew it down--the raw edge of the fabric would still show on the "inside" of the belt, instead of having nice-non-fraying folded fabric--I don't know the technical term for that kind of hem unless "lazy" is technical) hem because the denim would be too thick for it to handle three layers of denim. My machine could handle my ample supply of bias tape, but do I have over 16 feet of bias tape?

I meant in one color, and you know that. *folds arms
So, thoughts? This could be a total bust, but I'm willing to try!