Shorts for the little one

I brought home some t-shirts which my brother wanted to throw away for re-fashioning to toddler shorts. Did not document how I made shorts previously. This time I tried to take pictures as I went along for documentation purposes. :) First up! A picture of Colin in his shorts. Red & white are the colours of our Singapore flag. Kids would wear this colour combination outfit to school for Naitonal Day celebration.

Two reasons why I love this shorts:
1. Long enough to protect his knees when he falls and;
2. High enough to hold in the shirt.This young man's shirt hardly stays tucked in cause he monkeys around every other minute.

Shorts tutorial
I used an existing shorts as a guideline. Place the t-shirt flat, fold the shorts into half and position it on the bottom left of the t-shirt to reuse the very pretty finishing. Trace along the edges with 1cm seam allowance. You will have to extend the elastic bands fully to trace when you get to the waistband. Adjustments to the shorts has to be made now - add length upwards for higher waist, extend downwards for longer shorts, add width to sides to make it looser. Remember to add an inch (or height of elastic band) at the top for fold over waistband.

Time to cut along the 'dotted' lines, both front and back of the t-shirt to be cut together.

Flip the cut out piece and position it for another round of cutting.

Now we have 2 sets (4 blocks).

Place the fabrics right sides together, serge/zig zag as illustrated below, repeat for the other set.

Open up both sets, align it nicely, serge/zig zag the crouch portion together.

Still, with right sides together, serge/zig zag the sides.

Sneak peak! The shorts should look like this now. Not as tough as imagined. :)

With wrong side out, pin the elastic band, align it to the top of the fabric. I determined the where the halves of elastic band will be, pin front and back, then move on to 1/4, pin left and right, and finally to 1/8 of the band, pin middle left, middle right, back left and back right. This way will ensure even stretch for the elastic band. I sewed the start/end of the elastic bands together before proceeding to next step.

Serge/zig zag the top of the elastic band, stretch the elastic band to the length of fabric as you go.

How the shorts looked like after serging.

Fold down the elastic band to create the waistband. Set the pins at 1/8 point again.

Stretch and sew around.

Finished product. Yay! You can sew another line if you prefer. I settled with 1 line.

The original on the made.

And a happy mum and boy.