Tutorial: Adult Sweater to Child Leggings

So, now that you’ve made a nice kid a nice sweater skirt or a couple of nice diaper covers out of that nice (but ill-fitting) old sweater that you’ve been hanging on to, you still have some of that sweater left.

You have the sleeves, for one thing, and the shoulder and neckline that connects those sleeves.

And that, my friends, is exactly what you need to make that nice kid a nice pair of matching leggings to go with her skirt or her diaper covers.

This tutorial utilizes the crotch curve line from a pair of your kid’s own well-fitting pants–using that curve, and applying your kid’s waist and length measurements, you can create a warm, comfy, nicely-fitting pair of leggings that would go well layered with anything else in your winter wardrobe.

Here’s how:

You will need:

• adult-sized sweater, at least the sleeves and shoulder/neck area
• length of half-inch wide elastic
• pair of child’s well-fitting soft pants
• self-healing cutting mat, clear ruler, and fabric scissors
• sewing machine with zig-zag or overcast/blanket stitch and matching thread

1. Measure your child at the waist and inseam, and then measure your sweater. The length of the sweater sleeve from wrist to armpit should not be shorter than the child’s inseam measurement. The width of the sweater’s sleeve at the shoulder should not be shorter than one-quarter your child’s waist measurement (you can do some fudging to cut out leggings at the right size even if that measurement is shorter, but it’s futzier).

2. Lay out your sweater, sleeve towards you, on your cutting mat. Make sure it’s unwrinkled and that all seams are aligned.

3. Figure out where you’d like the crotch of the leggings to be. Leggings are easily cuffed, so it’s quite workable to measure them out long.

4. Take a pair of your child’s well-fitting soft pants, and fold them in half so that the crotch curve of those pants is easily visible. Align that to the point on your sweater sleeve where you want your crotch to be, and cut the sleeve to this curve. Cut all the way up to the top of the waistband of the pants. Your cut will extend up onto the shoulder of the sweater.

NOTE: If you need to add extra width to the waist, angle your crotch curve outward.

5. Add an extra three-quarter inch to the top of your cut for the waistband casing, and then cut along the waistband line to finish.

6. Lay the sleeve that you’re already cut out on top of the uncut sleeve, and use it as a template to cut out the other sleeve.

7. Turn one sleeve inside out. Put the sleeve that’s still right-side-out inside this sleeve, and line them up, right sides together, at the cut edges of the crotch curve.

8. Using a zig-zag or overcast/blanket stitch to partially encase the seam as you sew, sew the two legs together along the crotch curve line.

9. Straighten out the leggings so that they’re neat but inside-out, and sew down the waistband to make about a three-quarter-inch casing for the elastic (I always eyeball this).

10. Cut a length of elastic to your child’s waist size plus about a half-inch. Insert the elastic through the casing using a safety pin to feed it through, stitch the ends together, and finish sewing your casing closed.

You’re finished!

And seriously, that took longer to write than it will take to make.