Making Baby Pants

I've been sewing a lot in the evenings recently, particularly now I have a little lady to make things for.

In fact, she's wearing pants and a top I made for her in this photo.

I have so many gorgeous fat quarters that I buy and never use, so I decided to make a few pairs of simple baby pants from them.

You can easily make these pants from two fat quarters, depending on whether you grade it up or down.

I dug out my copy of Simple Sewing for Babies by Lotta Jansdotter*.

There is a pattern for simple baby pants in there but they were miles too big for Lu, who is just moving from a size 000 to a size 00. So, I took a pair of her 00 pants and measured the outside leg from waistband to ankle.

I measured the outside pattern leg and worked out that Lu's pants were 70 percent the size of the pattern on that seam. I then worked out 70 percent of all the other seams, which is why some of the measurements below are a little niggly (11.5 centimetres, for example)

And I came up with my own pattern:

You can see the dimensions on the pattern above. With the leg and crotch area, I just measured the two straight sections and drew a curve between them.

From there, I cut two pieces on the fold and stitched the sides, with a 1.5cm seam allowance (included in the pattern above).

I put elastic in the top and, hey presto, new pants!

They were so quick and easy to make. I think, including re-drafting the pattern, this took me less than two hours.

She has several pairs now.