The boys LOVE comfy pants or shorts to bed and with cooler weather they have been aching to cuddle up in something soft and cozy.
These pants fit the bill perfectly! Comfy, custom and warm = perfection!
If you have never made them or have but the fit was bugging you these are the perfect ones to try! Easy and they fit great!
They are so easy and they have the perfect fit!
Want to make some too?
First get your fabric and fold it in half selvage to selvage, see the white strip on the right? that is the selvage, so fold it in half right sides together.
A close up of right sides put together.
Get a pair of pants that fit your child (or adults too) and fold in half
like the picture below. The best pants are going to be ones that fit
with room to move while wearing, if you only have something like skinny
jeans then you will need to add 2-3" of extra room in the seam allowance
(or in other words around your pants).
OK so The red lines are where you will be tracing and cutting around the pants I like to leave a good 1/2" around for seam allowance/extra room. Up where the waistband is you can see I went up past the waist about 2 inches we will need that extra room for the elastic plus seams. at the bottom or hem of the pants I like to give myself 2-3" extra partly because I like PJ's to fit a little baggy and partly to give myself some error room.
Now I don't like to make my pants with the same front and back because the front is too high and is funny looking. If you want to make the front different than the back then you will need to now fold your pants this way. Make sure to align the front crotch seam and fold from there. Like shown below. Trace and cut the same as we did for the back of the pants.
If you are making the front and back different then you will now have 2 front and 2 back all traced/cut out. Mark each piece so while sewing you will know which is which. I do a B for back and F for front up in the waistband area as you can see.
If you are doing the front and back the same then you will have 4 of the back piece ( I marked that in green).
Take your back piece and lay down right side up.Then take your front piece and lay down on top of the back piece with right sides facing down, matching up the crotch area. The picture above shows what I mean in better terms (I hope ;0)
Don't worry if when you line them up you see that the back piece is higher than the front at the waist its OK! It is supposed to be that way!
If your pattern pieces are a little off
don't worry mine didn't match up perfectly either! We gave enough
seam allowance and they are loose fitting so it should be fine! Just line them
up as best you can adjusting as needed. You can see that my pieces do not fit perfectly the hems are
different. I leave them that way until I go to hem them.
Starting at the crotch where I marked 1 you will line up the best you can (no need to pin) and start sewing from the crotch down the inside leg and to the hem. Its more
important for the crotch to line up right which is why we start there
first.
Then you will match up and sew the waist where I marked 2 and sew down the outside of the leg to the hem.
Now do the same for the other leg.
After sewing we will pull one of the legs so they are right side out and leave the other inside out.
Now this may seem tricky but its not, I promise! Take the pant leg that is turned right side out and put inside of the leg that is inside out. Line up the crotch seams like shown below.
Just line up that seam and put 1 or 2 pins to keep it there.
This is what it looks like when done. See the inner crotch/leg, the outer leg and the crotch seams? We are almost done!
Pull out the leg of your pants and make them so they are inside out. Take the waist and serge, zigzag or fold over 1/4" and iron in place.
We will now fold over our waist band to make a casing for the elastic. Fold over just enough for the elastic, I used 1/2 elastic so I folded over approx. 3/4 inches. As long as there is room for the elastic don't worry if the measurement isn't exact.
Iron it all flat. There will be bumps and ripples and that is fine once the elastic is in and all bunched up no one will see it.
We will now sew on the edge of where we just ironed starting at the back. Pin where you want to start and pin where you want to stop with 2' gap in between the two pins (sorry I don't have a picture). Starting at the pin on the far right sew all around the waist and stop at the 2nd pin.
Don't worry if there are bumps and ripples I just sewed on over it like in the above picture!
Take your elastic and cut to your child's waist measurement or just wrap the elastic around their waist and cut. Pin one end of the elastic and thread through the casing you just made. sew the ends of elastic together making sure the elastic didn't twist while pushing through, sew up the 2" gap we left on the waist and you are all done with that!
Here is another elastic casing tutorial in case mine isn't clear.
Here is another elastic casing tutorial in case mine isn't clear.
Now to the hems. Serge, zigzag or fold over 1/4 inch the ends of you hem. Then fold the hems to about the length you want your hems to be, I did about an inch. I never pin or measure when I'm doing this I just eyeball it, iron in place and sew on the edge.
Match up the other hem to the first so they are (somewhat) even and you are done!!!!!!
Best fitting and most comfy pants ever and I swear its easy!
