Massachusetts has had a bit of a heat wave this week, and Johnny’s wardrobe was woefully unprepared. I hadn’t taken stock of his summer clothes at all, and discovered AFTER the warm weather arrived that he had one short-sleeved t-shirt that fit, one that was really too small, and a single pair of shorts that I could barely squeeze him into. I had an old t-shirt sitting in my fabric pile, so we took that and improvised it into a pair of knit shorts. It worked really well and was super quick to sew (I kept some of the t-shirt seams and the bottom hem so I was able to skip those steps). I definitely plan to turn more t-shirts into shorts in the future!
MATERIALS:
- Adult t-shirt
- Elastic (for wasteband)
- Thread
- Sewing machine
STEPS:
- Choose a pair of shorts (pants will work too, just cut the legs shorter) to use as a pattern.
- Lay over t-shirt and cut, adding seam allowances and extra fabric at the top for adding elastic. Notice that I kept the side seam and bottom hem of this t-shirt – cut down my sewing time for quite a bit and since these are just play shorts I wasn’t looking to make them perfect. You want to copy the backside of the article of clothing, since that piece is typically larger than the front piece. You can trim the front side later.
4. Trim the top front of the shorts a little – you normally want the backside of shorts to be higher than the front.
5. You can see in this photo how the back of shorts (right side of the photo) is taller than the front (left side of Image 4). You may want to trim some of the front edge (left side of Image 4) off as well, to prevent fabric bunching in the front (you need less in the front since in the back it is stretching over your child’s bum). If you do trim the left side, be sure to re-cut the little bit on the bottom left to match the backside.
6. Sew the side seams of Image 4 (done in the photo). I used a zig-zag stitch since this is a knit fabric and the stitching needs to have some give.
7. Open the shorts out the way they were in Image 3, but with the seams on the outside of the fabric. Stitch the crotch seam, again using a zig-zag stitch
8. Cut a length of elastic to fit your child’s waist.
9. Stitch down the top of the shorts, leaving an opening to insert elastic
10. Thread elastic through shorts. If you don’t have a elastic threading tool (not sure what the formal name for that thing is), attaching a safety pin to one end of the elastic works pretty well.
11. Stitch together the ends of the elastic, making sure that the elastic isn’t twisted within the band
12. Finish stitching the waist.
13. Put the shorts on your child and send them out to play.
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Johnny loves his new shorts, although he doesn’t share his sister’s zest for modeling.
