First, I’ll give credit where it’s due:
The author of redcurrent.com gave a clear tutorial for how to make these toddler pants, and the author of tinyhappy displayed inspiring before and after pictures of her tshirts made into pants.
Now, let’s celebrate my success, people. I took this long-sleeved t-shirt belonging to Ryan, and while Julian was asleep, I cut the two required pieces to make pants. About 5 minutes. It’s just a left leg and a right leg. Then, I sewed them together. Now ten minutes have passed. The kid was still sleeping! Then, Heather and Holden came over. Julian woke up, and while the boys wreaked havoc in my bedroom, tossing plastic shovels, cotton balls and Cheerios this way and that, Heather made 75% of a pair of lounge pants for Holden while I coached her and wrangled her baby. Sure, he had to sit in the Pack and Play for a few minutes, but we had a good time. Later that night, I sewed my elastic waist in. The whole project was about 30 minutes.
The full tutorial is here. If you don’t have the patience for my video, just keep scrolling for the instructions laid out in text.
1. Identify an appropriate t-shirt or sweatshirt.
2. Fold a pair of baby’s pants with crotch sticking out and trace. I have outlined what it should look like for you. With this placement of the cut, you will not need to hem the bottom.
3. Cut on your traced line.
4. Cut a second pant leg from the other side of the shirt. Look for the arrow on the left in this picture to see how I used my first pant leg as a guide.
5. You have two pant legs now, right?
6. Place right sides facing each other and pin. Sew along curves.
7. Reorient the pants and you’ll see that you just have a crotch to sew up and a waist to fold over and sew. Leave a space to thread the elastic through.
8. Insert elastic, sew waist closed, and you are done!
Now you can make simple toddler shorts or pants from a t-shirt. Please share your successes with us!
Other t-shirt projects:
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i love it! i totally don’t sew, but i’m going to try it.
I’ve just started sewing and have just done pj pants for my toddler. This is a great idea and I can’t wait to try it.
COOOOOL! A useful comment, I know, but it’s just so…cooool!
I can’t do anything crafty except with glue and scissors. But, geez, that would be great if I could sew. Who’s that cute little guy? Someone should put him on a CD sleeve!
Who needs to sew…have you tried Stitch witchery….its an ironable tape that sticks things together instead of sewing…doesn’t last quite as long but I can’t wait to try this and I don’t sew!
I love it! Just adorable. I’m the world’s worst sewer, but it looks like I can’t mess this up.
P.S. I have the same shoes you’re wearing in the photo. Love them!
WOW! thESE ARE WAY COOL! I’m going to give this a try.
FInally! A use for all my husbands old shirts! This rocks.
I’m a grandma of 6 and can’t wait to make some of these. Ingenious!
Thanks very much for the imaginative use for those ubiquitous t-shirts.
Those are fantastically cute! I’m going to try that out!
Wow! How adorable he looks in his cool new pants!! I LOVE recycled clothing projects, they’re so much fun!!! I have a site with free patterns for baby clothes, all based on recycled stuff (there even is a simular pattern up there for making baby-shorts!) and I find it very inspiring to see what other crafty moms come up with!
I am not the most accomplishes seamstress by any means and I whipped up a pair of these in about 15 minutes for my daughter and they are too cute. Like another poster said, I finally have a use for my husband’s ever-growing pile of old t-shirts.
Awesome job!
What a smart lady you are! They are just adorable.
these rock! I love sewing w/out a real pattern yay!
What a clever idea. Does anyone happen to have a pattern for making onsies out of t-shirts.
Mary, we don’t have one (yet!) but you can send a cool t-shirt to Nancy Dene and she’ll do it for you. Let us know if you find one.
I tried this pattern and love it. It takes literally 12 minutes to make a pair of pants. Now I made them for friends family etc for all occasions – halloween, christmas, easter, thanksgiving etc. I’ve even made them for kids party favor gifts.
this is the best pattern I’ve seen since sliced bread I have several shirts I can’t wait to recycle.
so cute…………!!!!
Hi, i am a 14, and this a really helpfull tip. I am starting to sew. Thankx
Hi, I just learned how to use my sewing machine, and found this very simple and a great way to use up some old material… perfect for beginners…
i made some of these!!! i posted them on my blog, check them out they are super cute!!!!! thanks for the AWESOME idea!
thanks so much for this clear tutorial. i am officially addicted to making these cool little pants for my son! i only wish i had known about this sooner.
What a great project! Don’t have any little ones to make these for, but will be sharing your pattern and blog with others through my site.
What a great idea! I am going to use this idea to make my pyjama’s.
This is so much easier than trying to follow a pattern. Thank you soooo much!!!!
wonderful, looks super easy, i am not a sewing person, but truly believe i can do this. thank you, looking forward to more ideas.
rhonda
john 3:16
I did this ! You made the instructions clear and the job was so easy! I made 6 pair of pants for my boys. Only thing, though, is that I didn’t leave enough room at the waist at first, so they were plummer pants.
Thanks!
This is fantastic. Just made a pair in 15 minutes. Thank you.
Thank it worked for me I did it! I am a just took up sewing and have a toddler he’s 2 years old and used a fleace jumper 6x used your idea made it to a to 3t. The sweat pants looks so good thanks for the idea. I I can’t stop showing it off to my family!
That is a great idea! Thanks for sharing. I am thinking of doing this with plaid fabric and sew a zipper down the side for punkrock baby Halloween costume.
I made them… Thanks for the wonderful tut!
Oh wow. That is awesome. I’m gonna have to try that!!
Just wanted to say that I thought that this was a really neat idea. I like that it is very simple. Keep up the great ideas.
Thanks so much for this idea! I just made some pants for carnival for my son and, even though I used plain fabric instead of a t-shirt and just used a pijama trouser as template, they took me a max of 15 minutes Wow. This is right up my alley
Simply put… GENIUS! Thank you!
Man, thank you so much! This was a great help to me. I am potty training my 2 1/2 year old son and wanted him to have a few short/pants that he could take on and off by himself. I whipped up few while he napped. I also took some flannel that I already had and made some out of that. Awesome!
Thank you so much for putting this up! I had an idea to make little capri pants to go with an eastery dress that I just made for Katie (my 9 month old) but I had no idea how to do it! The pictures are super helpful and very easy to follow- yay!
thank you very much
my son loves them.
http://www.tapuz.co.il/blog/viewEntry.asp?EntryId=1223758
Wow that is great! I really liked the step thoughs. I think I CAN do this.
I’m not a sewer. Can someone help me with Step 6? What is the ‘right’ side, and which bits am I supposed to be pinning to what? (And when do the pins come out?)
Linked to you this Tuesday (05-06) as part of my “Tackle It Tuesday”. I had completed some dresses but had your pants and some reusable grocery bags to go from a box of old t-shirts.
Doing the pants today (Friday) and I’m LOVING how they are coming out!! They are all done but the elastic (thought I had some but don’t). Thank you SO much for this post…even a rookie sew-er like me felt competent doing this! LOL
Thank you for such a great tutorial. My pants turned out great! Here’s a link to my Flickr photo. http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryconner/2487441463/in/photostream/ I’ll surely be making more!
Okay those are too cute. I’m going to have to give those a try!
Do you have to use a special needle in your machine to sew these since it’s stretchy knit fabric?
This tutorial helped me save a beloved old t-shirt that had begun to fall apart. It was a jazz festival shirt with a picture on the front and the list of performers on the back. Now it is a pair of long shorts for a seven year old child, with the art on one leg and the list of performers on the other.
Most t-shirts have the design higher up, and since the top of the shirt is the part which wears out first, it may be hard to make a sturdy casing for the waist. I took fabric from the hem of the shirt and sewed it to the top of the shorts to form the casing.
The shorts are sure to be a hit at this year’s festival. Thank you!
This is just what I was looking for! i have tons of old tees that I wanted to recycle into clothes for my little one on the way and this is just what I needed. Thank you!!
Made some of these for my 4 year old – she is tall for her age and quite little around the waist… made her the perfect pair of track pants from an old maternity t-shirt… the shape of the shirt meant the pants look like bell bottoms! She LOVES them… thank you so much xxx
The directions are great! I admit the “reorient” had me baffled for a minute then I realized I needed to turn them right side out. I made these super quick and instead of using elastic I made a drawstring closure using a 1 inch strip of t-shirt as a draw string
This is just what I need for my toddler. I whipped up a cute pair of pjs in no time. Thank you thank you thank you!! These are awesome.