No, I’m not pregnant, but my friend Erin is : ) She is due with a baby girl the first week of November. I can’t wait to meet the mini Erin! This morning was Erin’s shower where I decided to give her a handmade gift.
Now that I’ve made baby leggings once, I am excited to make more! Good thing my older sister just had twin girls. They will be 4 months old in December. Jane and Claire are getting leggings for Christmas! Please don’t tell them yet, it will ruin the surprise : )
This week I stopped by Forever 21 and found this floral skirt in the clearance section for $3. You can also find similar options on Amazon.
Anyway. Here’s how I did it. It takes ONLY 3 SEAMS.
Tools Needed: sewing machine (A serger is better if you have one available), scissors, straight pins (only if you want), a stretchy cotton mini skirt and either an existing pair of baby leggings or a pattern.
Since I don’t have any baby clothes hanging around to use as a guide, I found a pattern here. This blog has a tutorial to make the leggings with fabric but it is faster to use an already made skirt because it comes with the waistband and hem done! This particular blog offers a free pattern, I chose the 3-month size pattern.
1. Here is the original skirt laid out flat. Although the hip curves in this skirt are slight, they make a huge difference on a tiny person garment. So…. refer to step 2.
2. Lay the skirt flat with the side seams on top of each other in the center. This eliminates the curves and gives you straight folded edges.
3. The straight edge of the pattern lays on top of the fabric’s folded edge. If you want to use straight pins here you could. However, baby clothes aren’t fitted, so it’s no problem if the pattern moves a little bit while you are cutting it.
4. Flip the pattern and repeat step three on the other side of the skirt.
5. Open the folded pieces and lay them flat with right sides together. To keep the pieces perfectly together you could use your straight pins again here, but the fabric sticks together well so it’s not necessary.
6. I recommend using a serger here because it simultaneously sews the pieces together and clean-finishes the edges, but a regular sewing machine will do the trick too. The goal is to make a seam. Heck, you could even hand sew it if you want to get crazy. No matter your method choice, sew from the waistband (top) down to the crotch (point) on both sides. I should have changed the thread color on my machine but I forgot. Matching thread is always better.
7. Open up the two pieces and lay they them flat again with the two new seams on top of each other. It already looks like pants! Here I put straight pins along the inside of the legs because I wanted to make sure the hems and front/back seams stayed lined up while going through the machine.
8. Turn your project right side out and look what you have. Baby pants! Stretchy, comfy, made with love, leggings.
When you live in a small apartment this is what your workstation looks like : )
I just can’t get over how cute little clothes are. While most of my friends are baby-hungry, Lucas calls me baby-clothes-hungry. He’s right. Everything is cuter when it is mini.
I need to revisit the clearance rack at Forever 21 for more baby-legging-to-be skirts.