Ugly Sweater= Cute Baby Pants

Usually I start a project and get about 60% finished and then abandon it. I don't actually know much about sewing and frankly patterns scare me. The finality of cutting out the pieces is just terrifying.

Even so, the other day I decided I was going to make recycled wool pants for the baby. I found plenty of patterns for wool soakers and wool longies online, but not exactly what I was looking for.

Here is the Ugly Sweater.

I couldn't bear the thought of cutting up one of my own sweaters so I made Mr. L stop at the Salvation Army Store. This 100% Merino Wool sweater was $4.99 but, for whatever reason, all sweaters were 50% off. I ended up getting three 100% wool sweaters for $8.47. Now I've seen some people out there saying that they never pay more than $1 for the sweaters they use, but I'm quite pleased.

Then I shrunk all my sweaters. YES, Shrunk them! It's called felting. I washed them in hot water and dried them as hot as possible. They were pretty little when I pulled them out of there!

You don't have to do this, but it makes them thick, and when lanolinized, quite waterproof. Now If you just want them as adorable pants, you may not need to felt them (or lanolinize them) but if you want them to use over cloth diapers, this is the way to go.

I took Katrina's Quick Sew soaker pattern and modified it. She has a great longies pattern too, but they look more like yoga pants to me. What I wanted was snug fitting legging like pants.

I'm sure I had found a free pattern on the internet the other night, that was exactly what I wanted, but when I went looking for it again it was nowhere to be found!

First I used the patter to cut out the body of the "diaper" portion of the pants.

Mommy J got introduced me to the rotary cutter. I don't know how I lived without one! It cuts so nice and smooth.

http://katrinassqs.blogspot.com/2007/10/free-soaker-pattern.html

Then I chopped off the arms, as Honeybee would say, for the "Leggies!"

I had to narrow the sleeves so that they would be the same diameter as the leg holes of the diaper portion. I made the legs a little bit longer than needed figuring that I could turn up the cuffs and get a little extra growing room.

Then I turned everything inside out and sewed the legs on.

I cut the waistband from the sweater and used about half of it to create a waistband for the pants. I pulled the waistband as tight as I could while attaching it to the top of the pants so that it would be stretchy and hold the pants up.

Finished product on a very Wiggly baby! I have the cuffs turned up and the waistband turned down.

I actually used the ugliest sweater of the three because I was sure that my first attempt would end up looking like something unidentifiable. Much to my surprise I am thrilled with how these came out!