Ok so my granddaughter is almost 6. But she is skinny as a rail fence and all legs. Now finding pants on the ready to wear rack for this child is nothing if its not frustrating. And finding sewing patterns can be equally frustrating. She loves loves leggins but if they fit in the waist they are too short. Well when school started she wanted some leggins, being a good Grammie I bought her some and sure enough one trip through the dryer and they were 4 inches shorter than her legs. But they still fit perfectly every other way. So I brought a pair home, her birthday is coming up and I figured I could rescue the the remaining parts of the outfits by making new leggins that were long enough.

Well I did but in the process it got me to thinking, I know other parents and grandparents might just want to know how this is done. So here it is, step by step. For this example I chose a pair of ready to wear pants in a six month size but the concepts will be the same with any child or adults pants.

Materials needed:

Paper longer than the pants by 2 1/2″
marker
RTW (ready to wear) pants
Ruler

Steps to create pants pattern:

1. 1. Turn your ready to wear pants inside out, next insert your hand into the bottom of one leg, follow the leg thru the crouch and down the opposite leg, grasp the hem and pull back into the first leg. This will fold your pants neatly as show below.
   
2. 2. Align your center seams and stretch out the elastic, measure to find the stretch width of each side of the pants. For these pants the measurement is 12 inches.
   
3. 3. Measure from the top of the waist band to the bottom of hem of the pants, and add 2 1/2”. Cut your paper to that length. Christmas wrapping paper works really well for this project. With your ruler, draw a straight line at the edge of the paper that runs the lenth of the pants.
   
4. 4. Using the measurement you got by stretching the waist of the pants, divide it by 2 then add 1/2″ and measure from the line you just drew and mark for the center front and back seams of your pants. in this case I am measuring over 6 1/2″.
   
5. 5. Lay the folded pants onto the paper. Allow 1 1/4″ from the top of the paper to the waist band and a generous 1/4″ on the long side of the pants, the paper should be about 1 1/4″ longer than your pants.
   
   you can see that the waist on the pattern is larger than the waist on the ready to wear pants
6. 6. Place a mark in the hem area of the pants, where the inseam (inner leg seam) starts.
   
7. 7. Trace a general shape of the center seams, place a mark on the pattern paper at the top of the leg.
   
8. 8. Extend the inner leg seam of the pants by 1/2″ and mark. I used a see threw ruler allowing me to place the 1/2″ mark on the pants seam.
   
   
9. 9. Complete the center seam, and hem line if needed. Your general pattern shape should be something like this.
   
10. 10. Cut out of paper 2 of this shape.
    
11. 11. Pants fronts are slightly narrower than the pants backs, you can see that there is about 1/2″ difference in this pair. So using one of you paper pieces you need to mark at the top (waist band area) 1/4″ from the center front seam. We will taper this line to nothing where the crouch curves. Now Trim on the line.
    
12. 12. Align the lone edges of the pattern pieces and tape them together to form one pattern piece. It will look like this one.
    
13. 13. pin pattern piece to fashion fabric and cut 2 pants pieces.
    
14. 14. To assemble pants align the inner seam of each pant leg and stitch with 1/4″ seam allowance on inner leg seam.
    
15. 15. Turn one of the legs right side out and side it into other leg. Align inner leg seams.
    
    
    
16. 16. Pin center front/back seam and stitch with 1/4″ seam allowance.
    
17. 17. Turn under 1 1/4″ for waist and hem and stitch in place. Leave a 1 inch opening in waist to thread elastic through.
    

Congratulations on a job well done! With practice nobody will be able to tell which pants are purchased and which ones are copied!

First let me say that not all of my dolls are cloth. I have 3 grandchildren that are the life of my creativity. The youngest one is now starting to potty learn and needed training pants. Now he has been cloth diapered from the start and of course we needed cloth training pants, well a quick look see said nothing store bought was gonna work for us. I was looking for the gerber training pants of years ago and could not find them. I found 1 lonely pair at a yard sale and decided to use that for inspiration. Well they worked for us and recently I was part of a discussion on a group for cloth diapers and they asked for pictures so there they are with the step by steps, I hope this helps someone.

1. 1. Find a pattern. There are several free trainer patterns online, I happen to like Easter Bunz free trainer pattern but almost any will work. If you want to use Easter Bunz you can download it. Print your pattern and assemble it as instructed.
   
   
2. 2. Measure from the center of your pattern in 2″ and mark a line. On my pattern this allows just over 1/4″ in the crouch area. This allows the sides to remain one piece, this is important so adjust as needed on your pattern.
   
   
   
3. 3. Cut a strip of PUL or Fleece that is 4 1/2″ wide and as long as your trainer pattern is. Also cut a 4 1/2″ strip of your inner fabric, this can be a wicking fabric or flannel or even a knit interlock. I used an interlock in this example.
   
   
4. 4. Cut the pattern you marker earlier on the 2″ line.
   
   
5. 5. Pin the adjusted pattern piece to your side fabric, I like interlock knits for this as they have the stretch to pull up and down on the child.
   
   
   
6. 6. Pin the inner edges of the “wings” to the long side of the PUL strip you cut earlier with right sides together and stitch with 1/4″ seam allowance. Repeat for opposite side.
   
   
   
   
7. 7. Fold wings back toward the center, and place the 4 1/2″ strip of inner fabric right sides together matching raw edges and stitch both long sides with 1/4″ seam.
   
   ,insert your hand into tube and turn right side out.
   
   
   
   
8. 8. Compile your Soaker. In this example I used a cotton terry with 6 layers, but microfiber, hemp or a combination could be used. For ease I make mine as long as the trainer is but short ones could be used if you added a tail to them to extend it the length of the trainer. The point being that something attached to the soaker extends to the ends of the trainer to be caught in the waist band.
   
   
   
9. 9. For a pullups style trainer, you will add FOE (ribbed knit or lycra can be used) at this point and closures (Snaps or touch tape, etc). And your done! If you are looking for non-side opening pants continue on.
   
   
   
10. 10. For traditional training pants add side seams with 1/4″ seams.
    
    
11. 11. Add FOE or Ribbing to the leg openings to bring them to the size of the childs legs. repeat for waist.
    

Congratulations on finishing the trainers, I hope you like this style as much as we do!