Saturday 9 January 2010

Do you remember those cool boys pants?

The ones I designed for the Spoonflower competition just before Christmas? Well, the fabric arrived and the pants are made, Ebi-kun loves them to the point I had to bribe him to put them in the wash!
Although the fabric comes with the instructions printed on them I wanted to do a tutorial to go with it for the people, like me, who like pretty pictures to look at when following instructions.
The piece shown below is 1 yard of upholstery weight twill, I designed it specifically for this fabric since boys tend to give their pants a good beating.
Before you start you should wash and press your fabric. Use a post it note and stick one on each of the legs with the name of each piece written on it, this will save confusion later. Now cut out all the pieces, the seam allowance has been included.
Take the pocket and fold the top over 1/4", press then repeat so the raw edge is hidden. Hem the top then fold over the other three sides 1/4" and press. Repeat for all the pockets.
Place leg piece 1 and leg piece 4 on top of each other, right sides together, make sure the pocket patches are aligned. Pin, then with a straight stitch sew along the edge with 5/8" allowance.
Go over the seam again with an overlock stitch or zig-zag. Repeat with the other leg pieces.
Place the pockets over the patches, the two smaller ones are for the back pockets, the larger ones for the side. Pin in place then stitch, leave the top open! Lay the two pieces right sides together, pin the curved edges together.
Sew along the seams with 5/8" allowance and then over lock the seam.
Pull the outside leg seam open and then lay the fabric flat, they should be looking more like a pair of pants now.
Pin along the inside legs.
Follow the red line, start about 3 inches from the crotch, sew up and down the other leg. Then repeat but from the other direction, the green line. This will give the crotch area extra strength.
Fold the top edge over 1/4" and press, fold again just over an inch, press then stitch all the way around to make casing for the elastic, remember to leave a small gap for threading your elastic through. I personally prefer to leave the gap open in case I need to adjust the elastic at a later date but you can always sew it up if you prefer.
Turn and press then try them on the lucky boy who is going to get them as a new addition to his wardrobe, check the length and hem the bottom of the legs. Give them to the small boy then figure out a bribe so you can get them off him again!
I decided the back pockets were a bit too big, so they have been resized otherwise the pants will look just like this!
According to my wee tester the side pockets are the perfect size.
If you want to order the fabric to make your own, it is available here, direct from Spoonflower. The pants are for a 4-5 year old, 110cm. I do plan to try and resize them but it might take me a while to figure out how to do it.

You can also use this tutorial to make a plain pair of pants, find a pair of pants that you child likes, lay them flat on a piece of paper, draw round one leg with 5/8 added for the side seams and 2" on the top and 2" on the bottom, this will be your pattern piece. It will be rough and you might have to tinker with it a bit but should work well for easy joggers etc.

3 comments:

  1. thank you! I was ridiculously nervous about doing this!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jo they are so cute, and I'm not surprised he didn't want to take them off.....they're fab. Great job. xx

    ReplyDelete

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