Tutorial: Lounge Shorts From a Sweatshirt

I've got a little upcycling project for you today.  I've had a lot of people view my yoga pants from a t-shirt post, and this project is very similar.  Today I'll show you how to turn an oversized sweatshirt into a pair of sweat-shorts, perfect for sleeping, lounging, yard work, or exercising.  

At the end of winter I found this 5X sweatshirt at wal-mart for $1.  It would be pretty difficult to find this much sweatshirt fleece at a fabric store for this price.  So, this project set me back one dollar, but you could use any old sweatshirt or t-shirt to make some lounge shorts for yourself.  I'll show you how.

Hip for the Holidays: The Toddler

Hip for the holidays is winding down, and I hope that you've enjoyed a few of the things that I've shared.  I'll pop in tomorrow with a tutorial for a simple hair accessory, and Friday I'll feature some of my favorite projects from the Hip for the Holidays link party.  If you have any projects that you want to share, please feel free to link them up.

This is somewhat of a repeat from yesterday, but I am pleased with the results so I thought that I'd share.  Before I made the newborn baby cords, I made this pair of black cords for Clark.  He seems to be growing like a weed, and his Sunday wardrobe is seriously lacking.  I decided that he needed a new pair of pants, and that I was going to make them for him.

I had some medium weight black corduroy that my mom picked up at a garage sale earlier this year.  It was a very nice weight for a pair of pants, and should hold up well.  I picked out Clark's best fitting pair of pants from his closet, and used them to draft a pattern.  I'm not very experienced in sewing pants, so this was a whole new experience.  I had to make my guest guess at creating the fly, and the pockets, and the belt loops, but these are all details that I feel "make" a pair of pants.

Yoga Pants from T shirts

I recently did some clearance shopping at Old Navy.  I was quite pleased because I found several nice T-shirts in the men's section for $0.97 each.  I bought them knowing that my husband probably wouldn't be crazy about them and that I could turn them into something special.  I've been eyeing the Warhol baby dress from Dana at Made, but after some thoughtful consideration, and some t-shirt repurposing research I decided on some yoga pants.  I found this great tutorial on Cut Out and Keep.  Now I love to sew, but sewing clothing is really intimidating to me. It just seems that it is really difficult to get a proper fit.

The instructions are pretty simple.  You lay your T-shirt out flat, cut off the sleeves, the collar, and cut the shirt down the middle.  The arc for the shirt sleeves will serve as the crotch of the pants.  You simply sew together the two pieces at the middle, stitch one seam on each pant leg, add a waistband and your done.  Several tutorials that I found used the shirt sleeves as the waistband, but I decided to use a strip of fabric from another 97 cent shirt to serve as my waistband.  I liked the two colors together, and I felt like it gave it a little something different.  I folded my strip of fabric in half, matched up the center seam in the back, and wrapped the waistband around the front.  I crossed the waistband in the front and formed a "V".  I had to adjust the waistband a couple of times to get it snug enough to stay on my waist without a drawstring, but I am really pleased with the way they turned out.  The pants are super comfortable and were simple to make.  If you didn't want to fit your waistband you could always add elastic or a drawstring.  I have a feeling that I am going to be living in these pants for the next little while.

I used a shirt that was a men's large, and it ended up being a woman's size Small-Medium pant.

Sorry about the goofy photos, I am not the best at taking self portraits.

You can find my Sweatshirt to Lounge Short Tutorial here.