Flicker Friends Guest Post: Vanessa from Designs by Sessa

Hi Y'all! I'm Vanessa and I blog at Designs By Sessa! I'm a sweet little southern christian craft blogger that loves to sew and serve Jesus doing it! We are really friendly here in the south, so please say HI!!! I'm so happy to be here today and still can't believe I won the Earth Day Challenge this past season with my 'Taking Home the Baby Bumblebee' Hoodie! Project Run and Play is such a blast and I love all of it!!!

Lately, I've been organizing a new shorts sewalong  called "Shorts on the Line" starting next month and to say that shorts have been on my brain would be an understatement!!! Shorts are my go to item in the hot South Carolina heat!

Today, I want to show you how to make these mini boden knock-off Cropped Jersey Baggies. I put "Jersey" in quotation marks, because these particular shorts are made from some men's XXL lightweight sweatshirt type material, not true jersey, that I found at Old Navy for $1.47!



Uh, whaaat!? I grabbed them up! You can take any sweatshirt, as long as it isn't too too thick, to make some shorts like these. My sweatshirts felt like interlock on the outside, but almost like a towel or terry cloth on the inside (perfect for the beach!). And I made two pair, because the first pair were my "trial" pair (so don't look too close!) that I actually made WAY too big, so they will be pants this coming Fall for my son.

 Hahaha!!! Always good to work out the kinks when doing your own patterns!

You will need: 
-A thinner lightweight jersey sweatshirt (interlock is perfect!)
-25'' of twill tape for the tie (here's a good source) I used some that came packaged around some throw blankets. I'm all about finding your sewing materials in the oddest of places!
-your sewing supplies, particularly some ball point needles
-This 3T pattern CAUTION: My pattern is kind of messy, that's just how I sew, drawing right onto some freezer paper! If you need another size, you will have to draft your own using some pants your child currently fits in. You can easily adapt this to a 2T by cutting around the main front/back pattern pieces 1/2''. The pockets and the bias binding should adapt to any size.
-possibly some contrasting fabric for the bias binding, the red pair have a denim bias binding, the blue pair have the same sweatshirt type material
-possibly some stabilizer for when you hem to keep it from going wonky if you don't have a serger (I don't either!), or you can try Jessica's method with tissue paper! 

Other notes: I decided that this type of a sweatshirt WOULD FRAY, so you will need to finish (serge or zig zag) the edges how you see fit prior to sewing the pieces together. This tutorial assumes that you have SOME sewing knowledge, like I'm not going to go over how to make bias tape or hem some pants, for instance. There are plenty of tutorials out there on that already!I had a little bit of a rough time with the first pair, but I was working out the kinks, so I hope you will excuse some of those flaws! And I hope you enjoy this!

Cut off the bottom of your sweatshirt, leaving about 1 inch leeway. You will need this for the baggies' waistband later. Set aside.

 Lay out your pattern pieces and cut. Since you are using a sweatshirt, you can just cut both layers at one time and it will cut your reverse piece you will need. Thankfully, Old Navy did a pretty good job at lining up their stripes or else I would have had more work to do!I did play with doing vertical stripes for the back pocket piece and it still is a bit of work to line up those stripes either way, so be careful!

Sew your pockets with right sides together. Start by going down the longest edge and sloping around the curve. Do not sew down the small straight edge of the front pocket piece at this time. Repeat for both pockets. Finishing edge as desired.

Lay out your sewn pocket flat and inside out like shown above.

Take your front pant piece and lay the wrong side on top of the wrong side of your pocket, lining up your slanting edges. I know that sounds complicated, but just lay your pant (right side facing up) on the pocket and pin your slanty edge together. Then, sew this slanty edge so that you are joining your pocket and front pant piece together. Move the back piece of the pocket out of the way so that you do not catch it in the seam as you sew. Repeat with the other pocket.

One thing that I learned was helpful, was to baste or sew down the side and top where the pocket meets your front fabric. My pocket was sliding all around, but once I edgestitched the pocket in place, it stayed there and made the rest of the steps easier.

Make your bias tape. This is your opportunity to use a contrasting fabric.

Pin it to each pocket. The pocket is bent back in this picture, so you can only see the attached bias tape. Sew the bias binding onto the pant. Repeat on the other pant piece.

 Here's an image of the left side pinned and the right side sewn and what you should now have.

Put your baggies front pant pieces right sides together and align the crotch. Sew from the top of the pant down to the crotch. I like to use the Triple Stretch Stitch on this type of fabric with seams that will be pulled on more like when bending over, but you can just use a straight stitch if you don't have that option on your machine, or you can sew two stitches really close together! The Triple Stretch Stitch looks like this on my machine.

Now repeat this last step for the back pant pieces, sewing the pieces at the crotch together. Then, lay your pant front and back right sides together and sew the inner seams together, starting at one pant leg and up around the crotch to the other pant hem.

After that pin the side seams together and sew. I did not use the Triple Stretch Stitch for the side seams. You should now have this:

You are almost done! Grab the bottom band of the sweatshirt that you cut off earlier! We need to make the waistband for the pants. The size of your waist band is going to depend on the size of your child. My son is a 2T and he measured 19.5'' inches around his waist. I cut his waist band at 18.5'', so one inch less. Treat it like you would when measuring an elastic waistband.

1. With right sides together, sew the seam together. 2. With right sides together, pin and sew your waistband to the top edge of your pants. I used the serged thread lines on my sweatshirt as a guide, otherwise 1/2'' seams. 3. You should have this. And you could stop here if you wanted. Continue to add the mock tie. 4. Grab your twill tape. 5. Make it into bias tape if it was wide like mine. 6. Measure the halfway mark and mark 1/2'' to either side of the center seam. 7. Seam rip two tiny holes where you will thread your tie. I know this is kind of scary, but it's really okay. 8. Thread the tie through the holes. 9. Sew two parrallel lines over the tie to secure, creating like a mock button hole. This fabric is true jersey, so it won't fray anymore and it won't be seen with the tie tied like so...

This final step kind of makes it in my opinion, but I realize not all sewing machines have a stitch that looks like something has been serged. Mine does, so I used it as the mock fly for the sweatshirts and around the pant legs where I hemmed them. Mine looked like this. Mine was actually the last stitch option on my machine and I didn't have to change feet or anything like that, just the regular foot and this stitch made it look the way I wanted. If you don't have anything like this, then just leave this step out or use something close.

Sew the mock fly and hem your pants.

And you are DONE, my friend! GREAT JOB! I'd love to see your creation, seriously, so please add it to the Designs By Sessa Flickr Group! And please come say "Hello!" over at Designs By Sessa! I'll have some more pictures of my cutie in these adorable baggies over there! Thank you SO much for having me at Project Run & Play! I really enjoyed it and if you have any questions, you know where to find me!

Lots of blessings to you!

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