Another round of decluttering recently unearthed a skirt that I made for myself many years ago, but have never actually worn. After seeing two posts about upcycled baby trousers, one from a T-shirt and one from trousers, I thought I’d see if my skirt could become a pair of trousers for Leon.
I used an existing pair of cotton trousers to cut a pattern. As with the above posts, I cut them with the side seams on the existing side seam of the skirt, and the bottom hem on the skirt’s hem. No need to repeat work already done.
Baby trousers look very long from crotch to waistband, especially if (as here) you need to fit them over a cloth nappy.
First leg being used to cut out second leg.
Next, I pinned and sewed the front and back seams, and the crotch seam.
They looked pretty good already at this stage. The beaded decoration was already on the old skirt (I’ll take it off if Leon gets too interested in it as I’m not sure how secure it is.)
I pinned and sewed a waistband, with plenty of room to feed some elastic through.
Note pin marking the place at the front of the trousers where I was going to leave a gap for the elastic to be fed in through.
Waistband sewn and elastic threaded through on a safety pin and pinned to what I thought was the right length.
Elasticated trousers aren’t that much of a fashion statement, but they’re the easiest to get on over a baby bottom, having as they do no fastenings to do up while the baby is trying to crawl away from you. I checked the tightness of the elastic on Leon, then cut the elastic, took a few stitches to hold the ends together, and hand-sewed the gap in the waistband shut.
Sleeping baby, new trousers!
I’m pleased with that bit of upcycling, which took maybe half an hour all in, and may be repeating it with a pair of worn-out trousers currently lurking in the fabric box.
