Let Out Pants

Let Out Pants

You know how life gets in the way and you don’t exercise as much as you should. And then the next thing, your clothes are a bit tight. And then they get even tighter. I wish I didn’t love making and eating food as much as I do. Now that my other half and I are doing Pop Up Dining we get to practice our menus which requires more than enough eating. You can see what we’re doing – on this link.

There are two things to do. 1. Get bigger clothes. 2. Lose the weight. Option number two just isn’t happening right now.

So I came up with an option 3. I let out my favorite pants by adding an on-trend tuxedo stripe in the side. A vertical stripe is slimming and it’s made this pair of “let out” pants infinitely more fashionable. Here’s how I did it.

You need: –

• a pair of too tight pants
• 2 x long strips of fabric or tape at least 6 centimetres wide in a similar weight to your pants
• matching colour thread
• sewing machine
• sewing scissors
• pins

You do: –

I let out a favourite pair of jeggings but any pants will do to make a pair of let out pants, provided they don’t have too thick layers of fabric at the pockets or waistband. Cut right next to the outer side seam, then trim the seam away.

Splay the trousers open.

Your strip of fabric, or tape if you’re using it, needs to be wide enough to accommodate a seam and still have enough width to actually let out your pants. My piece was 6 centimetres wide.

Ensure that you line up the two sides of each leg when you pin them to the side strips or your pants could end up wonky.

If you can manage to fit your pants without stabbing yourself with pins, I would highly suggest you do this. It will help you to get a feel for how the finished tuxedo strip will look, whether the alignment is skew and how deep a seam to make.

Hem the top and bottom and that’s it.

Have a great green week.

Greenie.