Okay, so my sweaters are old. But I still like them, especially the color. (Did you know that most things are bought because of their color rather than anything else!?) And my kids-pants-knees keep breaking so I have a solution for both! (see my blog from May 2017)
I have turned 2 sweaters into 3 pants with different success-rates. This mainly because I didn’t make a pattern. I decided just to cut and see where I would end up. I like this kind of working because it is quick and might lead to understanding pattern making better.
First the cutting of the panels. There are currently many pants that have not that many seams and as it is easy to cut and quick to sew I thought to try something like that. I can simply put that pant on the fabric and cut next to the seam.
For the first pants, this is the easiest and I think super funny cause of the use of the sleeves for legs. Note that this cannot be done with all sweaters, but it works with this one because of the lack of shoulder seams in this particular style.
The original pants of which I got the shape are really flat. It has the elastic inside the waistband in one piece. It is approximately size 98. It is very slim-fit, just how it should be for my kid…
The final result was what I was hoping for, although the white part might look too much like a funny nappy or something when he wears it…
I was able to cut another pants from this sweater. Smaller. I needed to cut a waistband with it, because the fabric was not long enough to cut out another with a similar flat shape, like the last pants. I also wanted to add a small panel inside the crotch because some of the typical flat shaped pants created a hole after a while wearing at that spot between the legs.
I thought I had done everything right, but eventually I found out that the legs were pretty small and the cuffs I had cut were even smaller. I couldn’t have cut them bigger, beause I didn’t have more fabric but I decided to skip the cuffs altogether.
Next up is the sweater with the words. With this sweater I wanted to use as much of the wording as possible. In order to do that I had to also use a bit of cut and sew.
I think it worked, decided to go with contrast cuff for a bit of fun in the garment. (This grey rib-fabric was originally not in the sweater, so I cut out two pieces of new fabric for this effect.)
I am super happy not having to throw these sweaters out completely! The weather is starting to be warmer, where we live. So they can be worn very soon.
