I’ve always had a little soft spot for things made out of Bandana’s. On Oct 30 this year it is National Bandana day here in Australia. Bandana day is a major fundraising event for Canteen, which is a support organisation for young people living with cancer. The Canteen bandana’s can be easily sourced through supermarkets. I picked mine up at the checkout while I was paying for some groceries. Below is a mini-turorial on how I made up my bandana’s into some cute pants for George. I havent gone into much details, because there really are heaps of in depth ones on the net, for example:
Shorts
Dress
Skirt
Halter-neck top
The two Bandana’s I picked up at the supermarket. Not only am I helping a great charity but at $3 each they will make a pair of super cheap pants!
I decided to use an proper shaped pattern when cutting out my shorts. This is because I wanted the shorts to fit nicely, have the correct rise etc. That said, I didnt fuss over perfection here. I simply took a some pattern pieces that I had previously used to make pants for George (in this case Taku pants from Ottobre 2009) and made them work for the size of the Bandana. I left a gap between the pieces because I wanted them a bit wider in the leg to suit a loungey/bandana pants look. In this case the pattern pieces are too long
I cut out the fabric as a single piece and used a scrap to cut out two pockets. Note that I have used the hem of the bandana on the top edge of the pocket, waistband and hem of pant leg. This saves hemming/finishing these edges during pant construction.
Press in the edges of the pockets
And sew into place. I position them so the top of the pocket is roughly in line with the crocth of the pants and centred between the front and back crotch. Of course, if you wanted to save time you could easily leave the pockets off. I love fun/bright pants, especially on boys, but have a *thing* about them looking like pajama pants. I’ll do anything to make them look pantish. Pockets take them into pants territory.
Once pockets are on stitch the front, back and inner-leg seams. Add elastic to the waist using your preferred method.
I think its a good idea to add tags to the back waistband of the pants- this helps kids put their home-made pants on the right way round. If you dont have your own woven tags its really cute to make them out of fabric scraps. In this pic you can see the method I used to add elastic to the waistband. I used my sewing machine to stitch a circle of elastic to the inside waistband of the pants, then I turned the waistband over once and topstitched through the all the layers.
George wearing the pants.
Another trick to take your “they look like pajama’s” into pants-territory is to team the pants up with a collared shirt. Here I have used a knit polo shirt.
“Hello… You want to know what in heck is printed on my pants?…. I’ll ask Mum… Apparently they are these things called boomboxes. In the olden days people used them to listen to music! They look so old fashioned!”