Here are the supplies you need to make your pants adjustable waist.
Elastic, buttons, thread, exacto type knife and cutting mat. I also ended up using some prepackaged bias tape--I used double fold extra wide. I first cut 3 holes lengthwise in the elastic (about 4" long). Then I sewed the piece to the inside of the pants. Then I carefully sewed a casing around it with the bias tape. Hand sew a button and voila! Adjustable waist. Here's the result:
This is the inside of the waist folded over so it could be seen. It bunches a little because they are already elastic waist pants, but will work great for holding up his pants! :)
17 comments:
Thank you so much for this post!!
Recently I've lost weight and need to take in the waist on a lot of my pants. Since I'm 5'2", I've found that I fit into jeans from the girls' department. A lot of those have these adjustable tabs like you pictured, and I was searching to find a way to make this myself without paying a tailor!
I'm sure it varies with the quality of the sewing, but with the jeans I have that came with these tabs sewn in -- you can't see any "cinching". It probably also depends on how much you're trying to take in, but point being, you don't have to have fully elastic pants to make this work.
Hi Teri,
Glad you found my post informative! :) I defintely think this would work better on pants that were not elastic. These were what I had to work with though. :)
Deanna
Brilliant!!!! Blogged at Craft Gossip Sewing Blog:
http://sewing.craftgossip.com/technique-adding-an-adjustable-waist-to-kids-pants/2009/02/12/
You know this might help with the baby behind crack that my toddler seems to have with the pants that I make her.
gaileee
Love 2 Sew 4 Fun
Genius tutorial! Thank you so much for sharing this idea with all of us who get frustrated because the waist doesn't fit our tall kids! I'll be featuring you. Thanks!
That is so cool! Thanks for this awesome tutorial!
Awesome! I'm linking
my baby is a peanut- 3rd percent- and i've been searching for a way to make her pants fit her! this is what i was searching for but easier and nicer looking than i had in mind. thank you so much for sharing!!
Thanks for this post! I knew it couldn't be hard to do!! All of my kids are WAY too skinny for pants these days--seems like they cut pants WAY too fat, but my kids are tall & need the lenghth. We are going skiing this winter & I bought some snow pants for my two oldest that I'll be trying this technique on. I'll let you know how they turn out. :)
I have two skinny kids and they have issues with the waist of their pants swallowing them up to get the length that fits correctly. With a girl it is easy to add on a decorative fabric at the bottom to add length, but with my 11 year old boy we just have to buy them a little big in the waist, and always get adjustable waist.
Tina
Founder
www.theparentpack.org
The great thing about having skinny kids is that when they blow through the knees, or grow out of the pants in length we can cut them off and edge them to make shorts. My kids can fit the same waist size for years! So we only buy pants, and make the shorts most of the time. Plus skirts and shorts last forever, as the length is not an issue.
Loved the article thanks for posting it!
Thanks so much for this! My almost 3 year old is the standard really tall and thin so her 2T pants are all way too baggy and fall off. So many pants for toddlers come without belt loops too so it makes for a frustrating time buying clothes for her. I've bought several pairs of pants with these elastic/button adjustments built in and am so glad someone had the idea to show the rest of us how to do it on our own. Thanks again! You've saved me a lot of time!!
Just found you today and so excited to see this post! Can't wait to try this for my boys, and like Teri, for me as well!!
Thank you for this!! I have a skinny minnie little girl, and now I have to buy her uniforms that only come in sizes that would be too big for her -- with no option to buy the adjustable waistband clothes like I normally do. Thank you thank you thank you!
I think this a a very good idea! I will feature it on my blog (tomorrow it goes up)!
seemesew.blogspot.com
My grandson has jeans like this and they work great. For me, I don't need the waist to be adjustable so I do basically the same thing but not adjustable. Use your seam ripper to cut two vertical slits in the waistband 3 inches or so on either side of the middle seam or area. (You could go wider if your waistband is longer.) Feed a strip of 3/4" elastic thru the first slit, feed it thru the waistband and tack the back end with a zigzag stitch. Pull the free end out the far side and decide how long the elastic needs to be to fit properly. Again, zigzag the end and cut off the extra elastic. Now you have a gently snugged area of your waistband. This wouldn't work for a huge adjustment but it works great for an inch or two of snugness.
I love this for kid's pants! I am a new follower! We even tried your doll hair trick (worked brilliantly!). I have a tutorial for helping us moms with jean gap problems on my blog over at Jellybean Junkyard! Check it out!
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