a Cup of Thoughts (and fingerprints)..: adult jeans to toddler jeans..

Hey! I've been neglecting my own blog, let alone contributing on my other blog.. I've been busy packing and unpacking because we're moving house, and last week we went to Parkes and Sydney, NSW, having a little (winter) break and visiting our childhood friend..

I've been patient enough not to touch my sewing machine during the unpacking period, but now everything is settled and on their places, I can start sewing/refashioning again.. I got heaps of unfinished projects, don't know when I'll be able to work on them, but as wise man say, one step at a time..

As a starter, I made a pair of jeans for Noelle out of my old jeans. At 98cm, she's quite tall for a 2,5 yo toddler, and I found it's hard to find a perfect jeans that fit her because shopping was not fun for her and she'll grown out of it so soon. So, I'll just make one for her. I was going to make a tutorial but turns out it was hard to take pictures between the sewing process.. Here's what I have for now.

My old Billabong jeans, well loved and I wore it to death (approx twice a week in 7years), got frayed patch on the crotch area (from my constant rubbing inner thigh).. But I love that it was so soft, perfect for Noelle (she hated hard/stiff fabrics), and I intend to keep the worn out look on the side seams so the jeans looks not new.

I started with cutting the inner leg seam, of course you can rip it with seam ripper if you want to get as much as possible fabric to work with.

Then I removed the pocket with seam ripper because I love pockets and I'll use it again later.

Then I laid out the pants, tracing toddler pants pattern (the green fabric) on the jeans with chalk. To make the toddler pants pattern, I just traced her favourite pants, and flip it so I got back and front side of the pants as one continuous piece, then I'll call it the lefty/righty piece. But its a bit tricky to work with because when you tracing it on the jeans, you have to make sure you flip it so you got the right side of the jeans for your piece. Hope what I wrote made sense to you.

Here's the pieces, left and right piece of the pants, and 2 pockets. See how I got the worn out side seams and hem? I know you all capable to joining the left and right pants so I wont bother to take picture of the process.

After joining the left and right pieces, I sew the pockets on the bum.

Then I sew a 6 cm fabric strip on the waist to make the elastic casing. Actually I was just going to fold and sew the jeans to make the elastic casing but I found it will be too bulky and decided to make the casing with medium weight cotton from my stash.