Tutorial: 1 Pants=2 shorts

It's been a while since I refashioned any of my clothes. I do have a big pile waiting to be transformed into something new, but I neither find the inspiration for them or the right time or mood. A few days ago, though, I looked at this pair of pants my mom gave me not long ago, and thought This is it!

I was wanting a new pair of grey shorts for myself, so I just had to cut them and sew the seams.

But the baby shorts I did for my little one was what I liked the most from this refashion. I just loved them and she looks so pretty in them. 

Here's the before picture of the pants. Unfortunately I ain't got a picture of the bottom of the pants, which was what I liked less about it. 

To make those, I've put them on and marked how long I wanted them to be.

From that mark I measured until the bottom. Once I had the measurement done, I unpinned it and turned the pants inside out. I measured the same on the wrong side, then added a 2cm seam.

Sew it. And it's done. 

Then, with the leftovers from one leg only, I made G.'s shorts. Follow me to know how. 

First thing you have to make is find a pattern for your shorts. Or copy them from an existing shorts from your kids. That's exactly what I did. I mixed the pattern from two of her shorts. Well, from one of them I only copied the pockets, since they were way easier. Here, I found a nice way to make your own patterns, if you're interested. That's not how I do it though.

For my shorts, the patterns needed include:
for the grey fabric
2 front pieces
2 back pieces
1 little rectangle (sizes will follow along)
1 waist band  (sizes will follow along)
for the flower fabric
2 pockets
1 waist band (sizes will follow along)

Here's how I made the pocket pattern. Cut a paper rectangle of 19cm x 10cm. Use the front piece pattern to put over the rectangle you just created and copy the curve of the pocket into it. I have two lines in mine, but you just need to copy the first one (I was thinking about doing something different first but then changed my mind). Cut that little part off and fold the rectangle in the middle in half. 

To cut your pocket, use a different fabric. I chosed a pretty flowerish one. Fold the fabric, put the pattern on top, also folded. Draw a line all around. 

Open you pattern, and with the cut part on top draw the pocket line. Once again, just the first one.

Cut it off. You can see I left seam allowances here, but I cut them later, when I realised I didn't need them actually. The one seam you'll want to have here is the one on the bottom. I made mine 1cm only. Note: don't forget you want to have oposite pockets, so cut one for the left and one for the right. 

Now, let's forget our pockets for a while and move into the rest of the shorts. Pin your darts. First I thought about making two at each side, front and back, but then I changed my mind - that happens a lot to me while creating something. So that's the reason why you might see my pieces with two darts pinned. I only made one after all. Here's how it looked like:

This is how I first thought about:

So, let's go on with the tutorial. Add the flower fabric to the front and back pieces of the shorts, by pinning them together and then sewing it on your machine. Right sides together of course.

Also fold the 11cm x 6cm in half and baste one bottom and the side contrary to the fold. Here's what you'll end up with:

Let's get back to our pockets now. Put the flower fabric you've cut before, right sides together with the front piece. Pin and sew it.

 After sewing, make small cuts on the round lines to help turning around.

 Which you will do next. Pin and sew a line at about 0,3cm from the edges.

Press it with your iron, so it will look better later. Turn it to the wrong side, you'll then fold the flower fabric in half, and pin it.

Baste the bottom seam, use a 0,50cm allowance and sew, like you see in the picture.

Iron press the seams and pockets. Also the darts. You can also mark how long you want your darts to be right now. And sew them in place. Mine were 6cm long.

In this picture, I am showing the front pieces, wrong sides together. You'll sew a small line from the pin to my finger.

Sew back pieces together also. Press seams open like you see in the picture. You will also press the little rectangle.

Sew the small rectangle to the right side of the front pieces. This will be where we'll add our brackets. 

After the last step above, I closed my opening with pins. Just to have it in place. I then, sew a small, round shaped line from the pin I have my finger on, to the other pin a little above.

I made a little mistake here when tracing my pattern. I sould have left some more fabric on the left side, but I didn't so, here's a little cheating. Separate the two pieces again, and sew a straight line from the end of the previous seam to the top. This will be decorative. It will look like this:

It's time to sew front and back pieces, wrong sides together. Baste the seams.

 Press your side and middlecseams open like you see in the picture:

Time to sew the seams now. Fold a 0,50cm seam and iron it.

Fold again over the first fold. Pin it.

Fold the first line you've drawn right after the seam that puts together the different fabrics. Wrong sides together, and press it. 

This is the wrong side of the pants that you see in the next picture. Pin the seam you have folded before, into the grey fabric. Make a seam as close as you'd like to the edge. 

And then fold from the inside to the outside again, in the line where the two fabrics get together. This isn't very easy for me to explain, but I hope you've understood. Press it. 

To make sure, our seams will stay in place, we have to sew it on both sides and middle. 

Our shorts are almost ready. We need to add a waist band now. Measure the wearer's waist and cut a piece of the grey fabric, with that measurement (long) x 5cm. And one of the flower fabric, with measurement (long) x 4cm. Sew both wrong sides together. Then turn to the right side, put the edges together and press it with your iron. 

Turn it to the wrong side again, and sew both edges (the small ones), then cut it a little at each side, like in the picture, to give it a better finish when you turn it to the right side. 

Now, pin the waist band to the shorts, grey fabrics together on the right side. Baste it all around and sew it.

Then pin it on the right side, make sure the seam allowance on the inside is turned down. Press it and sew a seam on the right side, just above the seam you've done before.

If you want to add a tag, it's time to do it now. Mine isn't really centered, I didn't worry too much about that. I love my tag, it was created by V. (my boyfriend). My symbol is my own name. Estrela means Star... 

Sew the brackets in place (or use a machine to attach them if you have one).

And you're done! Here's the final project. Front of the shorts:

And back of the shorts.

I hope my tutorial was helpful. Sometimes I am afraid I don't explain myself quite good enough, so I am now asking for your suggestions, on how I could make it better. I'd love to see your creations, if you use my tutorial. 

Tutorial: Baby's Ant Costume Part II: the hat and antennae

Today's time to complete the Ant Costume Tutorial, by showing you how I made the hat for my little ant.

To start I used one of her hats to actually draw a pattern. I chose one in particular, because it had the right shape I was searching for. Just made it a little different.

Once you have your patterns, cut 4 pieces of the longest triangle piece, 2 of the smallest and two of the front  flap.

Sew the smaller two together, on the wrong side. It will look like this on the right side.

Sew the longest round edge of the flap.

Then turn it around to the right side and pin the side you just saw.

Make another stitch line at about 0,5cm from the edge.

Pin the flap to the two pieces you saw before (it is the smallest ones).

I actually had to adjust mine after pinning, since the pattern wasn't quite a perfect match. After you sew, it will look like this on the right side. 

Now, grab the rest of the pieces and sew them, two by two. Always on the wrong side of the fabric.

You'll need to sew those two new pieces together to make it just one.

It will look like this, when you do.

And I guess I was so excited making it, I didn't take any more photos. I'm very, very sorry! But all I did after, was to pin this 4 pieces to the one I had put together before, and then sew a 1cm seam all around. My hat looked like this after I finished:

Oh, and when I put it on G., I had to add an elastic to it. It's optional. 

Now, for the antennae, I used a headband I already had. I took the rose it had on it (and kept it away to glue in place later again). 

For the antennae itself, I wanted to use wire, but I realised I had none at home, and I started a search for anything that would work too. I founf some leftovers from electricity cables and those had to serve. With a thin cord, I attached two pieces to the headband. Make sure you tight them pretty strong... one of mine fell in the Carnival Parade. 

Then cut two circles out of the black fabric, they should be big enough to look proportional to your ant's head. I guess mine had about 8cm of diameter. Start by sewing a 0,5cm seam all around. 

Then pull your threat to create a little ball.

Fill it, Add the wire (or whatever you use... hehe) in the middle. Try to put it as deep as you can.

Then pull the threat as much as you can and sew it all around to close the opening left. Remember: Sew it tight!

Do it for both antennaes, and you've got your costume ready.

I was modeling here, G. fell asleep. =) Oh, and the next day, I decided it would look much prettier to be all black, so I cut a large piece of the black fabric and lined the entire headband.

click here to convert cm into inches!

Tutorial: Baby's Ant Costume, Part I Body

So, I've turned my little princess into a little ant for Carnival. Her first! And as I was making this costume, I was thinking about making a tutorial to share with you. 

So, you'll need: 

fabric - I used 1m of the black flannel; and just a few red flannel scraps I had from G.'s Christmas Dress.  

elastic - I used white for the body (legs) and black for the hat. 

scissors - I used a zig zag one to save me from overcasting the seams, which is fine, since she'll wear it once or twice. And a scissors for paper. 

black and red thread

brackets - I used 8 small ones (or you can get those ready to sew ones).

buttons - I used 3 for the front bodice

paper and pencil - to trace your patterns

your baby's clothes - to copy a pattern

1. So, to start off, grab you child's clothes that you've chosen to copy the pattern pieces. The one I chose, had the next pieces:

1. front bodice - cut 2x

2. back bodice - cut 1x on the fold

3. collar - cut 1x on the black fabric and 1x on the red fabric

4. little piece of the back pants - cut 1x

5- sleeves - cut 2x

6. front pants - cut 1x on the fold

7. back pants - cut 2x

After you trace your pattern, transfer it to your fabric. Add seam allowances (I used 1cm for all, except for legs and arms, I used 2cm seams. In the front pants, I used a 3cm seam in the middle _ fold side. Also in the front bodice, I made it 2cm). Pin it all and cut, like you see in the previous picture. 

For the ant's two extra arms, you'll need to cut a rectangle with 16cm x 52cm. Fold it in order to get a 8cm x 52cm rectangle. Pin it all around, give a round shape to all corners and sew. Find the middle of it and cut it into half. Turn it around, and you have the extra arms ready to fill. Leave a little seam allowance here too. 

To make the front bodice, just fold the 2cm seams in the middle to the inside. On the right one, sew 3 buttons, and on the left side, make the 3 buttons holes. 

Next thing you're gonna do, is lay the back bodice, and on top the front bodice, right sides together. Sew the line on the shoulder. After you do, your piece will look like this (previous picture). 

Pin the sleeves to the arm holes, with the bodice open like in the picture. Then sew it. Then "close" the sleeves, pin it and sew again. 

When you're done, turn it around, button it up, and it will look like this:

Let's get to the bottom now. Fold the 3cm seams and sew it. You should press it with your iron too. I didn't, because I'm lazy and only did that in the end. You might have to cut a straight line right in the middle so every seam goes it's right side. I know there are better ways to make it, but I just made it like this. 

After filling your extra arms, pin them about 6-7 cm from the waist.

Then, put the back pants on top, right sides together and the arms inside. Sew the seams. Turn it around and it'll look like this:

I did not take a picture, but I did sew the two pieces together of the back pants, and added the little piece that stays in between also. Which is that little piece of fabric you see in the picture above. 

Sew top and bottom together. Your ant's body is almost complete, but there's still a little to get done. 

Use the elastic, just slightly smaller then the width of the pants, pin it 2cm from the seams, and sew it with a zig zag stitch. 

Let's make some bias tape, shall we?! 

Cut some strips perpendicular to the fabric's line, which will make your fabric more stretching. I wish I could explain it better. Pin the strips like you see in the picture, right sides together, and sew it. Press the seams open, and cut out the excess fabric. 

Since I don't have any bias tape machine, I have been looking for an easy way to make my own, and the one you see in the 4th picture, was the most perfect solution I have came up with so far. I use two large pins, and pin it into my ironing board, one down and one up. I then pass the fabric throught it, and iron press it on the other side. You might need to give it a hand sometimes... it's not 100% perfect but it works quite well. 

Once you have pressed it all, fold it in half and press again. 

Pin the bias tape on the wrong side of the fabric - in the back part of the pants. Start in one leg and go all the way through the other. Sew it.  

Then turn it around, fold and sew on the right side. Your bias tape is in the right place now. 

Add the brackets, I sew mine by hand. Fold a 1cm on the bottom seams, and then fold 1cm more. Pin and sew. On both legs. Now close you brackets up and your little ant's body is done. 

PS. I just realised I somehow lost some photos, for example, the ones from when I added the collar to the rest of the pieces. That's missing in this tutorial. Well, I have sewed it somewhere between the process. First sew the red piece right sides together, and then turn the black one to the inside. I personally, hand stitched it. You can use the machine if you prefer. 

click here to convert cm into inches!

When things go wrong 1

Sometimes, for one reason or another, our dear projects don't come out as well as we were hoping to. That has happened to me a few times. Today I decided I should share a little of that too. Maybe you can laugh a little...

Right after G. was born, her father kept bugging me about a new bag he wanted for his mobile phone. He got a new one for his birthday, but it was bigger than the previous. The old bag wasn't good enough anymore. So, one day I was done listening to him, and measured the mobile and started the bag.
When he got home again, he got really upset. It was too small...

Damn it! I still don't know how could I get so wrong with that sewing project. I blame it on the fact that G. was just a few days old, I wasn't sleeping much, and felt as tired as never before.

Obviously, I then made a second one. Which was fine. Luckily enough, the first one was just the perfect fit for my own mobile.

this is the final one for him 

both of them. can you see the different sizes? what was I thinking?

his

back - sorry for the bad picture

and mine. I cheated and used the red trim just because I felt too lazy to change it in the sewing machine