How to Sew Your Own Pajama Pants

Step 3 Cut your Fabric

Fold your fabric just enough to accommodate your pattern. Pin with the longest part of the pattern right along the fold. Carefully cut around the pattern. Then do the same thing again so you have two pieces of cut fabric.

How you fold your fabric and where you cut will depend on the size pants you're making. With toddler sizes, you can use a mere 2 / 3 of a yard and fit both legs within a single width of fabric. With larger sizes, this isn't possible because the crotch makes the pattern too wide to fit twice. This is where a non-directional fabric saves you some money. You can flip your pattern and place it on the other side, sliding it down until the two crotches meet (boy, does that sound dirty) and waste less fabric.

Comments

[bma2003]

What great instructions! I just have one quick question: When we place our pattern on the fabric to cut, do we need the1/2" seam allowance on the straight edge that goes along the fold of the fabric, or no? I'm such a nervous sewer and I want to do it right! :-)

[compwalla]

You can skip that seam allowance if you want the pants to fit a little closer. Adding the extra makes them really loose and baggy. I tend to leave it off because my kids are built like pencils but if your PJ wearer has, um, ample thighs for instance you might want to leave that on. :)

[bma2003]

What great instructions! I just have one quick question: When you're cutting out the pattern, do we need that 1/2" seam allowance on the outside straight edge that we marked on our pattern, or do we not need that and put that straight edge along the fold w/out the 1/2" seam allowance. I'm such a nervous sewer and I want to do it right! :-)

[ForeverSiren]

I don't quiet understand this part of the instructions. I am making pj pants for a 7 year old who takes a size 8 childrens, (atleast thats the size of pants i measured) and i only bought 1 1/2 yards of fabric.
Anyway ,the part i really don't understand is what you mean by "Fold your fabric just enough to accommodate your pattern" and in the picture it shows it folded in half twice.

[compwalla]

So you have a piece of fabric 1.5 yards long and about 44" wide. If you have the pattern cut out for one leg, you're going to need to cut two of those. So if you've only got 44" wide of fabric to work with and a small-ish sized leg, you don't want to fold the fabric exactly in half because that's a waste. You'll cut a leg-shaped hole out of the middle and be left with not enough to cut both legs.

So. What you need to do is lay out the 44" of fabric and fold the selvedge edge (the finished edge along the long sides of the fabric) towards the middle only as far as you need to fit the leg pattern on there. Then cut Leg #1 out. Now you need a second leg so you refold and cut Leg #2.

[ForeverSiren]

Oh! Thank you so much! That really cleared things up. Thanks again! :)