Trousers

I have had an old pair of my trousers languishing for some time in a drawer waiting for me to do something with them.  I mentioned this drawer last month.  They were worn out completely on the seat but the material everywhere else was fine, I was loathe to throw them away.  They came to may attention again when I was hunting for the trousers to make the coasters I posted about recently.  I wondered if I could make a pair of trousers for Alice*, not being a sewer who follows patterns I made it up as I went along.

First up I laid a pair of her trousers on top of mine and cut straight across the fabric two and half inches above the top of the waist line of the smaller pair.  The two and half inches is the allowance I made for the waistband.  This gave me two tubes of fabric.

I then measured from the crutch to the bottom hem on Alice's trousers, measured this on one of the tubes and turning it inside out cut the seam from the top to that point, repeat for the other leg/tube.

Turn one leg/tube the right way out and insert this tube inside the one that is still inside out and pin round the seams that you have just cut (they should be right sides together) and sew.

Then I created a waistline.  Unfortunately my two and half inch allowance had taken me into slightly into the crutch of the original trousers so I didn't have the two and half inches I needed for the waistband.  As these trousers are going to worn for messy outside play in winter I wasn't too precious about how they looked.  Ideally I would have liked to have folded (wrong sides together) a half inch first and then a further inch to create a neatly seamed tube for the elastic to be inserted into.  I just folded the material over and sewed a seam to give me a one inch tube into which I inserted the elastic.

The important thing is that they fit!  An easy pair of trousers.

I have been sewing up a storm this week as I finished off the coasters that I had waiting patiently in a pile, I now have six and I sewed up another skirt for Alice using this lovely tutorial.

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* I have decided to give my children names on this blog rather than youngest and eldest, these are not their given names.  My eldest henceforth will be Cameron.