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Friday, January 3, 2014

How To Narrow the Legs on Your Pants!

I needed/wanted some new brown leggings or really skinny legged pants.
Remember that the weather here in Minnesota has been BELOW ZERO for days and days....
Going out to shop did not sound like fun....


Then I remembered these really nice Eileen Fisher Knit pants that I found at GoodWill a few years ago.

They are a really nice knit fabric!

They are a nice cocoa/mocha brown color!

They are EILEEN FISHER!

They fit!

But THEY ARE NOT the least bit skinny.....!



In fact....they look darn wide legged and really short in this photo.

When I washed them...I never used the steam iron to stretch them....

Really they looked OKAY when I did press them.
I wore them as soft wide legged slouchy pants....

but obviously....since they had been hanging in the back of the closet in their FAT state.....I figured it would be no loss to try to turn them into narrow legged pants.







The Nordstrom Eileen Fisher Site has these pants for sale!
Yup....Skinny Knit Pants for $208.....What a bargain!
This is what I did to turn MY $5 GoodWill pants into a pretty good replica!


The waist and hips of the pants fit pretty well.
I didn't need to mess with changing the size there.


I cut open the outside of the legs up to about 6 inches below the waist.

I cut the entire inseam open.
I figured skinny pants should not have a baggy butt!!!  

That meant it would be okay to take in some of the crotch area of the pants.










The next step was to measure the center of the front and back of each leg.

I pinned them together in the center spot.

I measured the legs of a pair of pants that had the right pant width.

This determined how wide to make the new seams.

The reason to cut the pant legs open and repin the opening is to make sure that the seams line up on the inside and outside of your leg.

Then.....a quick straight stitching of the seams....
I do have a serger, so I was able to finish the new seams nicely....but a little zig zag would also work!


Now those $5 pants look almost like the $208 pair!
If it ever warms up....maybe I need to go shopping and spend the $200 I saved!

2 comments:

  1. Good idea! I have taken in some by simply going from ankle to ankle, pre-pinning, and taking in as needed. Usually with jeans...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brilliant Idea and thanks for sharing it with us! : ) hugs...

    ReplyDelete

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