Now Making the Pants

Now for a tutorial on how to use that pants pattern to make some pants. I could make Henry infinite pants using this method - so easy and fun and customizable and uses very little material. Remember this method can also be used for adults.

Materials:
Enough fabric to cut out two of your pants pattern piece
Elastic

Step 1: Lay out your fabric either folded or with right sides together (here I have wrong sides together, same thing - you just need to get two mirror image legs). And lay your pattern piece on top.


Step 2: Cut out your fabric. Make sure to include a seam allowance. And leave enough space for hemming the bottom and making a waistband on top (hopefully you included this in your pattern).

I did include a hem and waistband in my pattern but decided that with this wide wale corduroy I wanted an extra wide waistband and also decided that I would make the pants extra long and do a flipped cuff. So I left extra fabric top and bottom.


Now you have this:


Step 3: Fold each leg over right sides together to match up the inner leg seam and sew that seam up.

You can see here that I did a good job on my pattern making because the inside legs match up perfectly. Don't worry if they don't, you can fix it up when you're hemming the bottom or snip a little from the crotch.


Step 4: Put one of your legs right side out.


Now place the right-side-out-leg inside the inside-out-leg (right sides together) and line up the leg seams. You're now dealing with that curve that is the crotch of the pants. Pin it.


And sew it.

Step 5: Now take that one leg out of the other and you have a pair of pants, still want them inside out though.

Now we'll do an elastic waistband on them. Fold over the top about a half inch and iron.


Fold the top over another half inch or so and iron again.

Step 6: Now sew around the waist creating a casing for the elastic. Be sure to leave an inch unsewn/stop sewing when you are in inch away from where your started.

Step 7: Attach a safety pin to your elastic and thread it through the casing. Once you have it all through compare to another pair of elastic waist pants to decide on the length of the elastic. Sew the two ends of elastic together and cut and push it all back into the casing.


At this point you can sew up that space you left in the casing or leave it open if it's not noticeable and it doesn't bother you. You may want to replace the elastic with a longer one if the kid grows.

Step 9: Hem the bottom of the pants. (Do the fold over a quarter inch, iron, fold over another quarter inch, iron, and sew.) I have no picture for this since I didn't do this, I just used the already finished edge of my fabric. (I got the fabric from a pair of pants.)

Turn right side out and you have pants!

And here are some pictures of my Henry being cute in his new pants.