Mends, repairs and a weird pant.

Hi!

I haven't been around here lately because I've been sitting at the sewing machine, doing a few projects, specially a lot of repairs I had stored up in the crafting room closet. I wanted to showcase a special one from which I learned a lot and I hope you can learn too.

It all started with this pair of common gym pants. I don't know what on earth happened to them that one leg became bigger than the other. I did NOT take the scissors to them before this photo just so you could see the huge difference in the pant length.

Sorry for the crappy photo but I was using my cellphone at the moment. Can you see the huge difference in length? It was more than three inches.

So I didn't waste a second and I cut the difference and the hem on the shortest leg using my regular fabric cutting scissors.

After I did that, I measured and cut two pieces of regular plain ol' black elastic. I measured my leg, just by my calf and I made sure the elastic fit pretty snug. If you cut it too long, its gonna hang from your leg and its not going to have the desired slouchy look (for lack of a better word).

The next step is to join the ends of the elastic and for that I illustrate two ways: in the first one, you use a little scrap of fabric to form a base and give strength to the elastic and in the second one, you sew the ends on top of each other.

 The first method as you can see. Always use the zigzag stitch to do this.

Second method here. Sewing the ends on top of each other.

There is going to be a little reminder inside your loop which you will need to snip.

Don't you just love that nail polish color? I was hesitant at first but it turned out great. After preparing your elastic you will need to line it with the fabric. I'd say this is the trickiest part of the whole thing. Remember your elastic is smaller than the leg of your pant, so you will need to ensure that the fabric bunches uniformly in each part of the elastic.

I've learned a pretty cool and precise method in which you start by pinning your elastic to your fabric in halves, then quarters, then eights if necessary. Let me show you what I mean.

First you start by looking for the center and pinning it on both the front and back of the leg. Then you continue adding pins in halves. After you are done with the halves, you need to pin the center of the halves, making them quarters. It should look like this when you are done.

After pinning, you will need to stay-stitch the elastic on your pant leg. I used a pretty big stitch. Most professionals or more experienced sewers would skip this part, but I usually play it safe so I did the stay-stitching. Sewing elastic is pretty complicated to be jumping steps. Also, remember that the elastic needs to be sewn while stretched which means you will need to pin the fabric to your machine using the presser foot and pull the elastic towards you while your machine sews.

This is what the stay stitching should look like. Remember, stay stitching is not a permanent stitch. Its done just to ensure the fabric is not going to move or tug while you perform a heavier stitch. I chose to finish the placement of the elastic using a variation of the zigzag stitch. I don't know it's name, but its pretty standard in every machine and it should look like this (number 7).

And the finished product should be this.

In this particular case, this fabric doesn't tend to fray which is why I didn't do other finish on it. I just cut the remainder of it with some pinking shears. If we were dealing with another type of fabric, I would definitively use another finish, perhaps even sewing a hem before adhering the elastic. 

So, there you have it. Adhering elastic is not a project you might wanna take on if you don't have a lot of experience. If you haven't done it before, you might wanna pick a cheap or broken garment to practice. Also, you might not get your elastic straight or perfect on the first try, but it is definitively a skill you get better at with practice.

I hope you enjoyed it,
Natz.