Make It Work: Taking In A Hat

My little family decided to take a quick little last minute trip last week.  We weren't very prepared for our summer outing, and I didn't have any hats for the boys.  We stopped at Wal-mart to see if we could find anything, and the selection was very limited, especially in the baby hat department. Clark and I found this little drivers hat, and it was by far the cutest hat they had.  Unfortunately, it was too big for Miles.  I knew that it would be, but I also knew that it would be easy to adjust.

 The hat had about an inch and a half extra room.  So I cut a piece of elastic that was 1.5" long.

Luckily, the hat band wasn't tacked down to the lining.  I opened up the band, and pinned the center of the elastic to the back center seam of the hat.  I then measured 1.5" away from the center seam in either direction, and marked those points with a pin.

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On The Mend: Adding Length to Long Sleeves

I believe that I've mentioned before that my arms are quite long.  As an adolescent I always had a difficult time finding long sleeve shirts that would reach my wrists.

I have a favorite knit shirt, it is actually the shirt that the Lazy Saturday shirt is based on. I love it.  The problem that I had with the shirt, was that there was a thin layer of sheer fabric, that was  cut on the bias, at the end of the sleeve.  Even though the fabric was bias cut, it didn't provide the needed stretch for my hand to pass through the opening.  After not so many wears, the fabric began to fray, and it was in need of repair.

To resolve the problem, I cut off the sheer fabric, as close to the seam as I could.  I then found some wide stretch lace (I found it here), cut it to the length of the sleeve opening, and serged the seam shut.

I then hand sewed the lace onto the sleeve opening.  It provides the needed length to the sleeve, and solves my problem of too short of sleeves.

Did anyone else wear lace trimmed leggings as a little girl?  I has some that looked just about like this.

I'm sure that this same process could be used on any long sleeved knit shirt.  I recommend the stretch lace, it is quite pretty, and you'll be seeing it again in some upcoming projects.

Thanks for reading, happy mending.

DIY Adjustable Waistband For Pants

It seems like for a large portion of my childhood I had to wear my pants with a 2 inch pucker at the back of my waist.  I'd try to disguise it with a larger belt and a longer shirt, but it was always very difficult to hide.  The alternative to having a 2 inch pucker in my waistband was having high water pants that were two inches too short.  I definitely preferred having the 2 inch pucker to the 2 inch deficit in leg length.  I wish that when I was a little girl there were adjustable waistbands in pants like they make now days.  

It seems that my almost two year old son is doomed to have the same leg to waist disproportion.  I recently found an inexpensive, but pretty cute, pair of pants at Wal-Mart.  I of course did not try them on him (would anyone really bother trying clothes on a toddler?). I also failed to see if they had an adjustable waistband. When we got the pants home I was quite pleased with the fit.  As we went throughout our day I realized that we had a major problem.  My active little boy was wearing his pants beneath his cheeks most of the night.  I decided that it was time to solve the problem by creating what every available pair of children's pants should have....an adjustable waistband. It didn't take long, and it has completely resolved the droopy drawers issue (while avoiding the 2 inch pucker).  

Click "Read More" below for a full tutorial on how to add an adjustable waistband to any pair of pants.