potty training part 2: pants

Well, I set out to make some perfect legging-type pants that would be easy for A to get on and off. She's starting potty training, and besides that she loves to put on her clothes by herself. I wanted them to be thicker than typical leggings for warmth, and stretchy so they give a little when she's trying to get them on and off, so after some trial and error I decided on cotton interlock, which is a super soft medium weight knit fabric. I wanted the pants to have a stretchy waistband, less restricting than elastic. The interlock doesn't have good recovery, it kind of stretches out after hours of wear (but unstretches when washed), so I decided to use ribbing for the waistband so the pants would be easy to pull up and down. I had some 100% cotton ribbing and some poly-blend ribbing to work with.

I made my own pants pattern based on my kid's measurements. I had a general idea of the shape of pants from patterns I've downloaded for free, like the one at MADE, and have drawn patterns off of store-bought pants, and sometimes they fit great and sometimes not. But, I am still trying to find a way to make a little money off of my sewing skills, so I want to have a clear conscience and know that the clothes I sell are made entirely from my own designs. I've designed roomier pants, and cloth diaper pants, but I still haven't made my own leggings design. I wanted these pants to fit pretty snugly, even when she loses the diaper, so if we need to we can layer them under other pants in the winter, but they need to have enough length that they're not going to be capris by the Spring.

The first pattern I drafted made some super tight leggings. I made the pattern using her measurements
without adding a seam allowance, thinking that leggings needed to be smaller so they stretch and fit like, well, leggings. It worked! They would have been perfect if I had cut them like leggings so they didn't have seams down the sides, and they had room for growing, and the crotch didn't sag because there's too much fabric there.

  

Then I made another pattern with bigger legs from the original leggings pattern. I basically used the same pattern as the leggings, but added about an inch on the outer leg side and a little on the inner leg, and made a dip in the front and a rise in the back. You can see the leggings pattern on top of the pants pattern in the first picture. It works great for non-stretchy fabric, but it isn't leggings. Here's some pants I made with this pattern, upcycled from an old quilted jacket and patagonia shirt. I folded down the top of the pattern 2.5" before cutting the fabric since I was planning to add a waistband instead of folding the top over and inserting elastic.

          

I like the pants and they are slim, but they need a little more length, are still a little bulkier in the crotch than I would like, and they would probably be a baggier with the soft stretchy interlock, and, well they're just not the leggings I was imagining. I remembered that I had experimented with some yoga-style pants at one point, and I ended up making the front part of the crotch much smaller than I thought I would need in order to make them fit up front so that the waistband isn't way up on her belly. And the back had to be quite a bit higher than the front to cover the bum. So, I took that yoga pants pattern that I drafted before, and imposed it on my leggings pattern (see photo), and adjusted the waist and crotch area. Then I added about an inch to the leg width from the original leggings all the way down, and after some trial and error, added about an inch to the leg length. On the right below is the final leggings pattern.

This pattern is perfect. The first picture with the green pants and blue waistband was the first try, and that's when I learned the waistband has to be quite a bit smaller so that it wouldn't stretch out and sag. For the other pants I used a 6" long waistband, so that when I fold it over and sew it on it adds a little more than 2.5" to the waist height. I cut the width of the waistband about 3" shorter than the waist measurement. For example, I cut a piece of ribbing 6" H x 13.5" W for my kid who has a 16.5" waist. After subtracting the seam allowance, it is actually only about 12.75" around. I like the ankle bands kind of long, so I cut them 5" H x 6.5" W. When they're folded over and sewn on, they add about 2.25" to the leg length. The orange stripy pants are about 3/4" longer than the plant pants, and you can see the room to grow in the picture. But aren't the plant pants absolutely perfect?? You can see in the picture where she's squatting that the waistband holds up pretty well!

I plan to add a tutorial soon for these pants, including how to draft the pattern yourself, after I get a little more practice under my belt. There are some things I've learned through this process. It is important that you have plenty of room in the butt. If it isn't high enough, it pulls down and forward, and the waistband pulls down over the diaper. Also, if you use fabric that only has 2-way stretch, you need to add even more height in the butt to prevent it from pulling the waistband down. Toddlers do a lot of squatting, which pulls the pants forward, so they need to have lots of room back there to move. Another thing, if you use 100% cotton for the waistband, you have to make it really snug. It stretches and doesn't recover well, so by the end of the day, or after lots of sitting and standing and jumping and squatting, the pants are falling down if they're too big, which is really annoying. I made one pair with a 14" waistband, and they were sagging after tots yoga class. I bought some cotton-poly blend 1x1 ribbing at Joann's in hopes it would retain its stretch better, and it did. The second thing is that more length in the legs is better than not enough! Most babies grow up more than out at this age, so the waist should fit a lot longer than the legs!

Stay tuned, after I find some people I can experiment on with sizing, I will do a tutorial, hopefully with better pictures than this post...

Have a great week!

Georgia