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Burke is built just like his dad- long and lean. It’s adorable (gotta love that metabolism!), but hard to outfit.
I have a whole drawer of 2T pants that are high-water length, but loose in the waist. This week I took matters into my own hands and turned a pile of Too-Short-Pants into cuffed shorts (great for simultaneously paring an overstuffed drawer and getting ready for summer!).
Do any of you have kiddos built like String Beans? Do you need to make quick work of a pants drawer? Join me- let’s make some cuffed shorts! You’ll need:
-a pair of too-short pants that still fit in the waist
-shorts that fit
-coordinating fabric (for the cuff)
-sewing supplies
1. Using the shorts that fit as your template, mark the length you’ll be trimming off of your pants. Trim.
2. To make the cuff, cut your coordinating fabric into 5″ wide strips of fabric. Iron in half. Then iron each half in half again.
3. Determine your cuff width by wrapping your fabric around the bottom of your soon-to-be-shorts leg. Mark.
4. Sew your cuff together into a loop.
5. Pin the cuff onto the bottom of your ‘shorts.’ First line up the interior seam and your cuff seam. Pin cuff in place all the way around the inside rim of the shorts. Flip cuff up to encase bottom seam and sew in place (this was easier for me if I turned the shorts inside out).
6. Turn right side in and Voila! Supercute cuffed shorts perfect for a String Bean near you.
ps- If you need pants instead of shorts, follow this tutorial omitting the step where you trim the pants to shorts-length. If you add a little length to your cuff, you’ll turn your too-short pants into cuffed, long-enough pants. Fabulous!
Love this idea! It also is a great fix for the pants my son wore holes in the bottoms from them falling slightly down all the time 🙂 Can't wait to try this!
I frequently find my 9 year old wearing her 3 year old brother's size 18 month shorts! It's the whole reason I started sewing again, if I have to alter all their clothes, I might as well make them to fit them from the start.
Such an awesome idea!! Who woulda thought that such a simple adjustment would be so neat!
These shorts are very cute and it's good to know that there are other moms out there with this string bean issue. I mostly hear about moms needing to make the clothes bigger around.
All three of my girls are just like your son. Summer is easy since I can shorten the pants into shorts. Winter…not so much. Not all pants can be lengthened and still look cute. It's pretty easy to make pants bigger, but smaller is a completely different issue. I spent some time this year creating a good pattern for a slim pant instead of simply tightening the waist of an already to-big-around pair of pants. I finally had success!
My 9 year old has always been 105% height and 50% weight. Tall and skinny, mom is over 6' and daddy's at 6'5" so what else would we expect. I've been turning his holy pants into shorts, but the cuff is way cute! My kindergartener can't even wear the hand me downs because he's more regularly proportiones (85/85) and all the jeans are slims. Guess who gets all new pants?
BRILLIANT! I have one of those guys too!!!!!! I can't wait to go through his drawers so I can do this myself. Thanks for sharing.
I have this same project on my craft table for my 8 year old who still can wear a 5/6 waist……and the cuffs are darling!
Oh my word fabulous! I seriously need to do this with pants they have gotten holes in and make them into shorts 🙂 Love this.
Visiting from cheeriBABY and loving this fantastic idea!
Visiting from cheeriBABY and loving this fantastic idea!
so cute love it!!
Great idea… my daughter is totally a string bean… poor girl is either runnin around in high waters or loosing her pants.. great idea (since those adjustable waists dont get small enough for her skiiny mini self!)
too smart! A few weeks ago I turned jammy pants into shorts, but I'm too scared to cut up pants, even though I bought them cheap at Target! HA! Both my two older kids are also bean polls, I'm still waiting to see if baby follows in their footsteps!
I have a string bean on my hands. I did the girl version of this (a ruffle) a few months back to add length to my daughter's pants.
I'm so glad I came across this post, as my son is built exactly the same! Now I know what to do with his cute pants that are too short. Any ideas for all the shirts that are too short too??
Cute! What a great idea!
I love that you added the cuff… Levi's are all just cut across and frayed, but I love that look too. 🙂 He is really tall for his age… he's as tall as his 4 year old brother, and a pound or two heavier. Makes for an interesting dynamic…
What a great idea! I love the longer short length and the cuff really makes them awesome! I know what my Saturday project will be 🙂
What a great idea, I have a little string bean of a boy too!
Carlee
http://www.ladybirdln.com
I was planning to do turn a bunch of my daughters jeans into capris!
We usually hand them down to my niece, but now they are in the same size :/
I love the cuff idea though! I hadn't even considered that 🙂
My boys are built the same way. This tutorial is genius!
Cute, cute, cute! I am featuring this on my blog!
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