Pants Maketh the Man

Heading into autumn, my little man needed some cotton pants. It's starting to be cool in the morning but warms up later, so still to soon for trackies or jeans.

I made lots of cotton shorts for summer. They are cute and functional, but a little plain. I wanted to make it a bit more interesting with pants. Plus as he gets a little older, he can make use of pockets!

I went to Pinterest for inspiration and found these

Left is a free pattern from ikat bag. I'd made this once before as a test run, but it doesn't fit my chubba bubba that well becausae there isn't a lot of crotch curve.  So I traced out the crotch from the shorts pattern I'd been using, because I knew it fitted well.  Other than this, I made it as per the pattern, but I didn't have enough of the print to make the waistband so used plain black.  They are meant to be 3/4 length when rolled on up, but on my little shorty, they're almost full length, so they wont be rolled down until he grows some more!

The centre pair was a free pattern from Compagnie M. but it's no longer offered so I just worked out something myself.  I started with Kwiksew 4080 because he's currently wearing a pair of pants I made from this and they fit well.  Which is actually surprising because he's 1" taller and several kg heavier than the 'measurements' for the largest size.  Oh, well, you  make what fits, regardless of the number on it.

I'm not sure what the original version was inside, but my version is a false opening at the front.  It's is a real flap, but underneath the left and right front are joined together, so I just sewed the decorative buttons on through all layers.  This does mean that the pockets are technically one big pocket across the front but my boy is only just working out pockets so I'm not sure he'll realise any time soon.  I used the flat from from the original pattern as my guide for the pockets, but I probably could have put them closer to the centre.

He hasn't worn these yet so I don't have an 'action' shot

The pair on the right appears on the  Made by Rae blog, and inspired me to do the same.  I used the same Kwiksew pattern above and just made it up as a full elastic waist rather than with a flat front.  Then added the side panel, including pockets.  So simple!  And after wearing both these and the black ones, this seems to be the best pocket style for his age.  He had great fun putting "lego" (actually lego style blocks that are erasers) in them.

I think I need to work on my 'action shot' photography skills..... but it's so hard to get an almost 3 year old to stand still and/or do what you want for photography purposes.

With what he already has in his drawers, this should see him through the in-between weather, so now I need to start thinking about warm pants for the cold weather, and apparently winter PJs too because these kids just keep growing...