Tracksuit Pants for $1

This Wednesday my little man will be 1 month old.  Can’t believe it, where did the first month go.  I feel like I was only in the hospital last week.  It’s the same with my girl’s.  My eldest will be 5 next month and then her sister will be 4 in September. 

Recently I went through all their clothes and sorted out what was too small.  I had to buy more winter wear as their little legs are getting longer.  But with the weather the way that it is I have found that they are going through their winter wear quicker than I am keeping up with the washing and that they have lots of jumpers and not enough tracksuit pants.

So into my stash of material I dove and found two pieces of fleece that were leftovers from another project.

I think I was pushing my luck just a little bit though as there was not much left.  Lucky my girl’s are tiny.  I used the same idea as the shorts I made for Grace’s skorts to make these pants.

First I folded the pants in half (front sides together) and placed them on the fold of the fleece that way I did not have to sew together the outside of the legs only the inside:

Then using tailor’s chalk I marked the outline of the pants and cut.  Make sure you allow for the seams.

Do this twice and this is what you should end up with:

Before sewing the two pieces together I find it’s easier at this stage to do the hem at the bottom of the legs:

Then I pinned the inside of each leg and sewed them using a stretch stitch (number 19 on my Janome) as I don’t have an overlocker:

sorry couldn't get a very clear picture

Now to sew the inside of the legs together:

And here they are.  Not bad I must say.  Now to just add the elastic.

I used elastic that was about 2cm wide (all I had in my stash that was thick enough), measured my daughter’s waist and cut accordingly:

Then I pinned and sewed a hem around the top of the pants leaving a gap to insert the elastic.  Using a safety pin at one end to guide the elastic round (make sure you anchor the end so that it doesn’t disappear), sew ends together then sew hole.

And here they are.  They are just a little long in the legs but that is to allow for growing.

So why not give it a try.  The fleece cost me $4.99 per metre at Spotlight, so with the size of the piece I had left it cost me under $1 to make these pants.  I’m thinking I might just go back to Spotlight and pick up some more fleece.

Happy Sewing