The offending pants

These lovely pants are another find from the Freecycle bag of treats that was desperately needing a restyle. The pants themselves are in really good condition, but kid’s TV programme logos on clothes aren’t really my thing.

My first thought, SCISSORS! Cut the legs off and get rid of the logos! But that pesky one on the right leg was too far up. So, I decided to cut them off into shorts anyway and add a band made from the leg fabric to lengthen them.

Voila!

For anyone that may have pants that need a little change-up, here’s what I did:

I cut the legs off just above the logo. Ignore the fact the I had already made a cut lower down, I thought I may have been able to do it differently.

I cut two strips approx. 5cm wide to make the bands from the bottom of the pant legs so that I didn't have to finish the edges again.

I then pinned the bands to the shorts, right sides together.

Next, ironing the seams flat towards the bottom of the shorts.

And that’s it! A brand new pair of shorts, without the tacky Hi5 logo. Brilliant, and simple!

Squish better start growing faster so that she can fit into her growing pile of new clothes!

Nicola

Have you heard of Freecycle? It’s a website where people post their unwanted items for others to have for free in the interests of keeping unnecessary stuff out of our landfills. It’s an international organisation, but you just sign up for the posts in your area.

• Freecycle

Recently I scored a huge bag of girl’s clothes in size 4 – 7. There was all kinds of good stuff in there. A lot of it was covered in paint but that just tells me that the little girl that used to own these clothes was very creative! There were also a few homemade knitted and sewn jerseys in there too.

About half of it is in good condition and has gone into a bag to wait until Squish gets a little older. The other half is stained or stretched beyond repair or just not my taste, and so is destined to either be altered or cut up and used for something else. Luckily I have a little while to work on it all since she is no where near fitting any of it! But do keep a look out for a few tutorials on altering kids clothes in the near future.

Right, back to today’s tutorial. Altering these lovely purple flared pants:

into something a little more to my taste:

I’ve altered my straight jeans into skinny jeans before, so I figured this would be no trouble. Got a pair of kid pants that need a restyle? Let’s get into it.

Stuff you will need:

• Rotary Cutter and cutting mat, or scissors
• Ruler
• Pins
• Sewing machine
• Iron

Step 1:

Using your ruler, check the outside edge of the leg. If it is already straight, great. If not, like these ones, put a pin in where the flare starts. Put another pin in the bottom to mark where your line of stitching is going to end. I guess if you have chalk or a suitable pen, you could draw a straight line to show you where to sew.

Step 2:

Starting a little before the pin, sew along the original line of stitching and when you get near the pin slowly start to veer away from the edge, sewing in a straight line towards the pin at the bottom of the pant leg. This is where a drawn line would come in very handy! Must get me some chalk.

Step 3:

Repeat for the inseam. Using your ruler, straighten the inseam. The top of the leg on these pants was fitted so I just continued that line all the way to the bottom. Using pins mark your start and finish points as before. Sew as for the outside seam. Trim excess fabric and finish edges by zigzagging or overlocking. Repeat for the other leg.

Step 4:

Iron your seams. If you are working with knit fabric like me, this step is definitely a must. Just press and lift, don't drag the iron.

Turn in the right way, and you are done! One pair of tights that I will happily dress my child in.

Next up, a pair of Hi5 pants that I can’t stand! Shorts anyone?

Nicola x