Reuse & upcycle: pajama pants to leggings (tutorial) |Keeping it Real

Monday, February 2, 2015

Reuse & upcycle: pajama pants to leggings (tutorial)

As promised, I bring you another reuse & upcycle project. This time I turned one of my husband's pajama pants into dark blue leggings for my daughter.



The pants were almost new and were originally discarded because the pajama top had a series of bleach spots. Well, those pants lived in my craft closet for almost four years and now, because I'm making a huge effort to declutter, I finally decided to make something out of them.

Because kids grow out of their pants fairly quick and leggings are a must in any girl's closet, I decided to create a small tutorial. To make the leggings, you don't actually need pajama pants, you can use any other kind of knit fabric (sweaters, t-shirts, your own old leggings etc). When my daughter was a baby I made several leggings out of old sweaters, sometimes using just the sleeves.

Anyway, lay one pair of leggings that fit your girl on top of the fabric your're using. If you're using other pants, re-use the bottom hem and one of the side seams.In the picture below you'll see that I added a bit of length at the bottom.






Using scissors or a rotary cutter, cut along the original leggings, leaving some extra fabric on the side (seam allowance) and a bigger margin on top, enough to fold over and make an elastic casing.


Cut both legs, making sure they are symmetrical and sew the side seams first.





Then place one of the pants legs inside the other, right sides together and sew the front and back seams. You can't see very well in the picture, but the leg on the outside is wrong side out and the one on the inside is right side out. When you put one inside the other and joint the edges, you will be sewing right sides together (if this is not clear enough, let me know)


When you turn everything inside out again, you should have something like this: 


Now the only thing left to do is to fold over the top and sew an elastic casing. Insert an elastic, close the opening and your leggings will be ready.


Since I'm almost sure that by the end of next spring these leggings will be too short anyway, this is an inexpensive way to make some additional clothes for your kids while getting rid of unused items we sometimes have laying around.



Enjoy,


18 comments:

  1. Ha! This is genius! Nice idea!

    Thanks for joining the Link Up this week!

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  2. What a great idea! I love upcycling! #creativemonday

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    1. well, upcycling is my middle name this year, so drop by once in a while to check the news. Have a wonderful week!

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  3. What a great idea! I love upcycling! #creativemonday

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  4. What a great way to reuse! Thanks for linking up at Motivational Monday. Hope you will link up again this next week! :)

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  5. I love, love, love this! Thanks for linking this up this week at Merry Monday's!

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  6. such an awesome idea and well done tute so we can do it ourselves :) thanks for that! If you haven't I hope you will link it to our upcycle Creative Challenge Party on Friday!

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  7. This is such a great way to use old pants! Thanks for linking up with us at Motivational Monday! Hope you'll join us again this week :) http://makingitinthemitten.blogspot.com/2015/02/motivational-monday-february-8th.html

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  8. What a great post! Love it! Pinned and tweeted. We love to party with you, so I hope to see you tonight at 7 pm. That would be so awesome.
    Happy Monday! Lou Lou Girls

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  9. Great Idea!! Thanks for sharing on My 2 Favorite Things on Thursday - Link Party! Come back again on Thursday and share some more!! I love having you!! Pinned!!

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