Sailor Pants!

There has been some fabulous sewing happening for my little man cub lately!  Lots of winging it…which is always tricky, and sometimes a total disaster!  We have been lucky this time, with the little mancub ending up with a few new pieces of clothing and I ending up with a solid handmade pattern to rely on…again and again and again!  I have big plans for keeping my boy in the cutest pants and shorts around!  It’s actually pretty tricky to keep up with the needs of his legs…he started out so long (23”!!!) and has just kept stretching and growing at alarming rates.  The joy of boys!!!

I fell in love with sailor pants this spring.  On boys or girls, skirts or pants, I think they are just darling!  And it turns out they are super easy!  They are worn (a variation of them at least) by the boys in the amish community nearby and the dear woman that owns the cloth store there that I frequent as frequently as I can (!) shared the construction techniques, and her pattern with me. 

The fates aligned the past few days when our boy grew out of his last pair of church pants and I ruined a pair of my husbands khakis.  (The ruining was actually a joint effort…he didn’t take the wallet out before tossing it into the hamper and I didn’t notice!)  One of the fabulous things about having a tall husband is that his pants have a lot of great fabric left for repurposing even if he’s worn out the knees…or in this case stained the backside with black leather…ahem!  With my little guys current size it’s as easy as pie to turn one pair of Daddy pants into a pair of little man cub pants! 

A few particulars…I left the original hem of the pants, partly because I liked how wide it was and partly (mostly) to save a step!  Also the buttons aren’t functional…there are huge snaps sewn on behind.  A trick I learned from my amish friend! 

We are all thrilled with the results and I can’t wait to delve into the stack of fabrics I have set aside for more sailor pants, sailor skirts, and sailor shorts…! 

(These pictures were taken after a trip to the strawberry patch so there’s a few pink spots on his pants.  I think there are going to be pick spots on his clothes every day for the next few weeks!!  They sure do love that strawberry patch…and with her being able to reach up on those tippy toes and unlatch the garden gate they are quite unstoppable!)

Wishing you some very happy summer sewing!