Tutorial: Oxford Gent Trouser
11:55 PM
Remember back when I made my son this corduroy Oxford Gent suit?
Well I took photographs for a trouser tutorial and finally got it together for you. It's a basic faux front, elastic waist pant that is really easy. You'll use a pair of your kids pants as your pattern.
The faux fly is really convincing I think and with pockets, they're great to mimic store bought pants and are a great way to use dad's old chinos or khakis to upcyle new pants for your boys.
Tutorial:
Faux Fly Pocketed Elastic Waist Kids Pants
1. Cut out pant front and back
Using your pair of pants, trace the pants on the wrong side of fabric using tailors chalk or fabric pencil. The waist and bottom hems, I add 2". The side seams I added 5/8" for seam allowance.
The differences come on the front pieces, where you'll cut out the curve or in my case, straight slant for the pocket, and adding the fly.
To add the fly to your pattern, you'll add 2" from the original pant crotch line. Give yourself about 2" of the bottom seam, then curve out to the 2" mark as shown below.
2. Cut out Pockets
I usually just draw a scooping curve shape, and don't use any pattern. In this case, you'll need 4 pocket pieces. I used a pirate print flannel, and remember you'll need these to be mirror opposites to have a right and left pocket. A simple way to get both right and left pockets is to cut them right sides together, yielding the same shape in a right and left version.
2 pocket pieces will have your pocket shape and have the top corner match the pocket slant of the pant front pieces.
The back two pocket pieces will have the same shape, except rather than the slant, you'll want to scoop it lower.
Finally, you'll cut 2 backing corners from the outer fabric. To make the back pocket pieces, top-stitch the lower scoop pockets on top of the backing corners.
3. Sew Front Pockets
Line up the slanted pocket pieces on outer fabric, right sides together.
You'll sew the seam of the slant. Next, fold the pocket to the back or wrong side of outer fabric and press. Top-stitch the seam with 1/4" seam allowance along slant.
4. Sew Pockets Together
First you'll take your lower scoop/ corner backed pocket pieces and line them up to the back of your front pieces. This makes the pocket pieces right sides together.
Line up the pocket pieces and sew around the curve of the pockets.
When laying flat, you can baste the top and side of the pocket to the front piece to secure the pocket, and the corner backing in place makes the pocket seamless with the outer fabric, and you still get fun lined pockets.
5. Center Front and Back Seams
(bum and crotch seams)
The back (bum) seam is simple, you just sew along the curve with 5/8" seam allowance.
For the front center seam, you have to add the fly. The seam is sewn with the 5/8" seam allowance, curving at the bottom of the fly.
You'll clip into the corner at the bottom of the fly, being sure not to snip the actual stitching.
To make the faux fly fold, I lay the pant front flat, making sure the top of the center seam is flat, and then fold the excess fly fabric to the left. Press with the iron to set the fold.
Flip the pants front right side up, and to secure the fly, you'll top-stitch straight down and around the curve to the center front seam. Repeat the same curve again 1/4" apart as you see on manufactured pants.
You pant fronts are constructed with the pockets and fly.
6. Construct Pants
With the front and back pieces connected with the center seams, you now place them right sides together, and sew up the side seams and the inner leg seam, which is a rainbow shape.
7. Add Elastic to Waist
I only added elastic to the back of the waist, but you can put it all the way around if you want.
I start by pressing the waist down 1.25" to 1.5".
(At this point you could sew around, leaving a few inches unsewn to make a hole, then thread your elastic around with a saftety pin, sew the elastic ends together, then sew the hole closed for a full elastic waist.)
To only have elastic at the back half, I tacked my elastic to the side seams, then top-stitched the waist down with 1" from fold.
8. Hem Pants
I usually always have my kids try on the pants to mark where it should be hemmed.
I like a thicker chunky 1.5" hem for boys pants too.
You're finished!
Hope this helped and would obviously work to make girls pants the same way. You could also choose to add patch bum pockets like you see on jeans before step 6.
6 comments
These are really cute. And I agree that the fake fly is very convincing! Gives them that little something so that don't look homemade (not that homemade is bad or anything!). :)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for all you do and offer so many of us. I would love to be able to send you a surprise box and if there is an address to do so please let me know. Thanks so much again.
ReplyDeletethanks for posting this! I was going to start in on a pair of pants for my little but got a little overwhelmed with figuring it out and folded it back up in the WIP bin!
ReplyDeleteYour suit looks amazing! I've read this post over and over and I think I'm starting to get it :) I think the tricky part is sewing the front up and clipping. I'm not sure yet where to clip. Hoping this is one of those things that makes sense when you just jump in and start doing it! I'm super excited to make some cute seersucker shorts for my 4T boy. Thanks so much!
ReplyDeletePaige
Thanks-- your explanation/pictures of the mock fly are easy to understand :)
ReplyDeleteFinally! A tutorial that makes the faux fly make sense! Thank you so much! I'm going to try this soon for my 1 year old. Thanks for showing us how to draft the pattern too- that's exactly what I needed!
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