Pants and a Pal - Whiplash

Here is my entry for the Whiplash competition this month. I am entering this in the deconstruct/reconstruct category. I decided to take my husband’s old shirt and make pants and a pal for my 9 and a half month old son.

Here is the shirt before:

Here are the pants...
back:

front:

and the pal...
front:

back:

The shirt is made of a more industrial type weave (it made me think of Dickies brand). I like the orange, blue and brownish colors, and the orange ribbon label inside was too cute to toss, so I added part of it to a pocket. The colors with my digital camera didn’t seem to come out well, so I put the pants in my scanner.

Original Shirt tag:


Scanned Picture of Pants:


I liked the thicker fabric for a crawling boy. I originally wanted to have the pockets as knee patches, but there was not enough fabric on the front of the shirt to work with without doing piecing.
For a pattern I took an old Simplicity pattern I had for a simple jumper.
With creative folding of the pattern piece, I was able to cut out pieces for pants without drawing out a new pattern for myself.

I knew that I wanted to make the bottom of the pants roll up with a snappy strap on the bottom.

I sewed French seams down both sides of the legs to make the seams look nice when rolled – I don’t have a serger, so French seams have been my work around for awhile.

Along with making the roll up legs, I also wanted to make the elastic waist adjustable. I sewed the casing open on the inside in the center-back and sewed a button on one side. The elastic is sewn down on one end in the ditch at center back, but comes around to a loose end held by the button. This makes the waist easily adjustable in the future. I have seen this idea a lot lately in maternity and baby pants.


As for the Pal – what kid doesn’t want a pal to match their pants? I have been inspired lately by the stuffed creatures I have seen on other blogs, and recently made a couple out of old boxers and some remnants. The collar of this shirt inspired me to make a cat this time using the points of the collar for the ears. The limbs all have a layer of felt and a layer of crunchy plastic (a favorite of my boy). Inside the stuffed body is a small metal container with a little jingle bell I found in my junk drawer. On the back I added a felt tail.

Pal in action:


Pants in action: