Learn to Sew Free Course

It’s fall again and I’m having the same problem I have every. Single. Year. My kids have no pants that fit them correctly.

Both of my children are average height, but are very thin. This doesn’t create many problems in the summer because shorts and skirts don’t have to be long. However, when it’s time to wear long pants (or trousers for you British folk) again, we find that all their pants that fit fine in the spring are now too short. And most store-bought pants that are long enough for them are too wide in the waist for their long, thin build.

So either my kids go to school with ridiculously short pants (which doesn’t bother them, but it does bother me), I buy them some new ones (which rarely fit properly and anyway I decided years ago not to buy any new clothing), or I sew them new ones. However I’m usually particularly busy with the hectic start of the school year, and have a hard time finding time to find a pattern, modify it to fit their thin bodies, and cut it out.

That’s when this comes to the rescue: old sweatshirts. Because adult sweatshirts have sleeves that are a great length for pants for young kids (up to about age 5) and they already have a wonderfully comfortable cuff at the bottom. (Or, if not a cuff, a finished edge, like in the pair seen below.) So your discarded clothing (or a super cheap thrifted sweatshirt, like this one that I bought for €1 to make my son’s Minion costume) can become fantastic sweatpants for your child!

They’re so comfortable for kids to play in and you don’t even need a pattern to make them! You can simply use a pair of pants that fit as a cutting guide!

What a time-saver! Last year I made four pairs of these pants in about one hour and my boy was set for that season’s pants!  (Yes, that is a patch of white hair my son has. He was born with it. I didn’t bring him to the hairdresser to do it, as some people have asked me!)

So what are you waiting for? Let’s make pants from sleeves for your children!

Read more

Can you imagine what it must’ve been like to wear clothes long ago, before there was any elastic? Sure, there were buttons and laces to tie up, but my favorite garment fasteners, elastic and zippers, are relatively new inventions. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must’ve been to get children dressed… and undressed, and dressed and undressed… without elastic waistbands!

I LOVE elastic waistbands! They’re comfortable, give more flexibility in sizing, and are easy for kids to get on and off by themselves. They come in all different widths and even in awesome colors and prints, so you can make them part of your garment’s overall look.

As part of my Learn to Machine Sew series, I’ve already published two lessons on elastic waistbands: sewing an elastic casing and sewing an exposed elastic waistband. The technique I’m showing you today, which I’m calling an attached elastic, for lack of a better name, is yet another way to create an elastic waistband and, like the others, it has its pros and cons.

Elastic casing waistband:

Pros: elastic can be easily removed to adjust sizing, ugly elastic is hidden inside, no need to split elastic/fabric into fourths

Cons: must measure and iron fabric to create the perfect width of casing, elastic can twist up inside the casing

Exposed elastic waistband:

Pros: doesn’t require extra fabric to cover the elastic so is good if you’ve cut the garment too short, shows off cool elastic, no measuring or ironing of fabric necessary

Cons: possible lost stretch, need to split elastic/fabric into fourths, more difficult to remove the elastic if adjustments are necessary

Attached elastic waistband:

Pros: very fast and easy, ugly elastic is hidden inside, no measuring or ironing of fabric necessary

Cons: possible lost stretch, need to split elastic/fabric into fourths, difficult to remove the elastic if adjustments are necessary

I will be totally honest: this attached elastic technique is not my favorite way of sewing a waistband. In general, I prefer not to sew into elastic because some qualities can lose stretch when you stretch and sew over them. But the main reason is because I quite frequently have to adjust the fit of elastic waistbands. This can be either because the elastic has stretched out over time, my kids have grown or I made a measuring mistake when sewing the garment (hey, it happens even to the best of us, right?!). This is why I almost always sew a casing for waistbands.

However, do consider that this is my own personal preference and that there are LOADS of sewists who prefer this method over the others, so it’s really a matter of personal preference. I suggest trying them all out so that you can choose the most suitable technique for each of your projects!

Follow the links above for learning more about the first two elastic waistband methods, or keep on reading to find out how to attach elastic to a waistband in the third way!

Read more

Sure, you may know how to sew an elastic casing or how to install a zipper, but do you WANT to? Sometimes you just want to do things the fastest and easiest way. And sometimes you just don’t have enough fabric to do so. This is when you can resort to the easiest waistband method ever: the exposed elastic waistband!

This waistband is exactly what it sounds like: exposed elastic, which is sewn directly onto the top edge of your garment as a stretchy waistband. I’ve started using this solution a lot when refashioning because sometimes I’m just too lazy to pick out the old over-stretched elastic and just cut it off, or because I’m on the tall side and often need to add a little bit of length to my garment, and this method allows you to actually add on length instead of removing it to sew in a casing.

For example, when I totally screwed up a pair of leggings, which ended up too tight and too short, I added an exposed elastic waistband to avoid making an elastic casing that would end up halfway down my bum. A perfect fix!

Today, as part of my Learn to Machine Sew series, I’m going to show you how to sew an exposed elastic waistband in just five steps! You can practice this technique on any tube of fabric or do as I did, and add it on to a skirt (or pair of pants, shorts or leggings) that has an old elastic that needs to be replaced. Then in the next tutorial on Cucicucicoo, I’ll show you how to sew a skirt from scratch with this type of easy waistband.

Are you ready? Let’s start!

Read more