EZ EC pajama pants!

Like I said, Doodle and I are working on doing EC, which you might think of it as a gentle form of infant potty training. If you are not familiar with it, please check it out! If you are a modern woman (or man! sorry, not trying to be sexist dads!) and even if you have to work hard for the money, here’s a great way to spend less on diapers, avoid diaper rash, avoid conventional potty training (toddler messes suck… I worked at a preschool in the 2′s… not pretty!) you will feel empowered with every poo that goes in the potty (and not in a diaper pail, or into a cloth diaper that you have to clean!) Check out more here!

So in order to EC better at night (or on Saturday mornings when we sometimes get to stay home in our PJ’s all day! yay!) I was getting to the point of screaming every time I had to unzip the sleeper, and doodle was cold when I had her sit on the potty at night. so I came up with these pants and a shirt, but that will be a later post! (if you need the shirt right away, here’s a similar pattern, I just tweaked her idea! (plus her little model is SUPER CUTE!)

 FOR THE PANTS:

First, you want to take a pair of comfy pants that fit your little one  well. Fold and trace onto some paper. (Newspaper would be great, I had to tape some printer paper together. Unfortunately we have plenty of screw ups on our printer, so fortunately they didn’t go to waste!)

So as you can see, I traced the pants with about 1.5″ added to the top-for hem and elastic, and bottom (for better feet coverage and grow-into ability!) I don’t mind them long, she doesn’t seem to either with ankle elastic. Make sure you also add a little extra for seam allowance and on the back extra so it fits around the diaper well. just so long as when you put the front of the leg and the back of the leg together, the point of the crotch of the pants should match up, sides match up, and bottoms match up. The top should match up on the straight side of the leg, but the crotch side does not have to match. some pants are made so the back of the pant goes a little higher than the front, giving more room in back for diaper and more room in the front for a free belly!

After you have your templet for the front, you can either tape the straight side together or cut 2 front and 2 back with added seam allowance on the side. I taped mine together, one less stitch, and it seems comfy-er! I also did a little trace around her feet with about 1/2″ added for extra room and seam allowance.

 All you need now is a foot top, which is the same as the bottom foot at the toes, but cut it at a crescent shape for attaching to the ankle of the pant leg. I couldn’t help but choose which monsters I wanted on the top and bottom of her feet! (I know, she loves monsters and she’s a girl! I can’t blame her, I’d pick monsters over Cinderella too! Fortunately we got monsters AND Cinderella, what a deal! now if we had dinosaurs or robots….)





So after you have your pieces cut out, it’s time to sew! First, I match up the crotch pieces, front to front with right sides together,  and sew from the hip to the crotch angle. Then again on the back side with right sides together, sew from the hip to the crotch.

After that the fun begins! I always have had a hard time sewing different shaped curves together, but hopefully this will help! So first you fold the fabric in half to find the middle of the toe piece, then the front pant leg. Once you have the middle, pin the fabric smack dab in the middle with right sides together. Then take the sides and pin them down to the edges of the circle shape cut in the front. Mine didn’t quite make it all the way to the edge, so I just serged it. If you don’t have a serger, just trim after you sew on your sewing machine. Pinch the two pieces of fabric to match the edges together, and if you notice, they will not lay flat. Good! That is what you want! They should make a rounded shape once they are pinched together.  Pin and stitch it shut! Don’t  be too daring, make sure if you are serging to pull the pins out in plenty of time, and TAKE IT SLOW!!! I will take no responsibility for you and your machinery, ya hear?

Then check out that handiwork! BEAUTIFUL! You are going to do the same thing on the other side.

Now the bottom part of the feet is just about the same, with a bit more intense curving and pinning. Again, fold it in half, pin the centers together, and at this stage, double check that you are pinning on the heel, not the toes, unless you did a perfect oval. It should match up perfectly with the toes on the front.  This time there is no edge on the foot to match to the sides of the pant legs, so you just have to pinch the edges together and pin. Once you do that, just check to see that your foot is on straight, that the sides of the pants match and look proportionate. They should go about half way, not quite halfway down the sides of the feet. SEW IT UP! Again, careful with the pins!

quick! pull the pins! slow it down!

 on this picture you can tell I serged a little past the place where the edge of the foot combines with the ankle. It is totally fine on this piece, because I will be fixing it up when I fold it together.

Now, some of you might think “Why didn’t you do this first? What is your malfunction?” here’s the thing, I am not perfect. I tried to do the elastic first one time, and it totally didn’t work well as I tried to put the feet on. It was harder to line up the feet, and then the elastic looked wonky… so just do the elastic after the feet unless you live on the edge.

Mark it the same on the back and front.

I put the legs together and marked both sides on the wrong side so the elastic will line up. Then I opened the legs up and marked with my straight edge so I had a guide for the elastic.

you want the line to be fairly close to the feet.

Take a ¼ inch strip of elastic and stitch it down to the line using a zig zag stitch.

check me out! I actually used the right thread color for once!!!

 I stitch forward and backward first, then with my needle down I stretch the elastic and pinch it to the fabric so I can guide the fabric straight while I stretch and sew the elastic.

lock it down, line it up, needle down...

and stretch..2...3...4...!

 Now that you have done this to both sides, you also have to stitch the feet together. Turn the heel and the ankle seams together (again, right sides together) the curves should fit nicely inside each other.

then pin...you are going to stitch all the way around the raw edges of the feet so your baby doesn't look like a hobo with toes flopping around! Make sure you overlap as you stitch so that there aren't any holes on the feet. Also the pins, get those out of the way too!!! :-)

pin the elastic together...on both sides...

and the crotch...

After you have the elastic on both legs, just situate them like the britches they are. Ah. Getting there! So take some pins again, and the most important pinning places are 1. the crotch, both seams together. 2. the elastic on both legs.  So 3 important pins, the rest you could totally just line up as you go, or pin if you are nervous.

continue straight down, line up and straighten crotch to a line.

I flatten out the bottom of the foot before I sew and overlap some of my previous stitches. If sewing on the sewing machine, just go over your previous stitches before heading up the leg. Sew toward the crotch, and adjust as you go so the crotch is straight. That way you can just zip through it. As you get close to the other foot, flatten it out as well so you can sew right along your previous stitches, that way there are no holes.

hehe, that's my elastic length written with dry erase on my sewing machine!

make sure you have enough hem for elastic!

Turn it right side out and get excited!!!! Time to hem!!! Turn in the top so you can hem it, and I am so sorry but  I am so not a perfectionist, so I only turn it in once. It is fleece and won’t fray, so I just left the edge on  the inside, all loosey goosey. That works for me though, otherwise, just tuck that edge in too and pin. I used ¾ inch elastic, so I allow for about 1 ¼ inch for the hem. Don’t sew the hem completely up, leave some room for the elastic threading!  After sewing that up, I  measured the elastic based on the comfy pants. You could measure your little one’s waist and then stretch and measure out the elastic (not too tight though so it’s still comfy!) add a ½ inch before cutting for an overlap when you have to sew it together.

My favorite way to thread elastic is with a safety pin and a crochet hook. Put your safety pin through the elastic and close it up, then push the safety pin through the hole you left in the hem. Cross the crochet hook to the other side, feed it through, and use it to pull the safety pin out! Saves so much time!!!

Now make sure that the elastic doesn’t have any turns in it, it should be laying flat in a loop. Now, overlap your elastic and sew it up. I used the setting on mine that is a zig zag but in multiple stitches (see pics!) then I just sewed forward and backward multiple times!

Pull your pants waistband  to pull the extra elastic inside and stitch up the rest of the hem!


WOW!!! You are done! You can totally stop here, OR…

If you are like me, you won’t be able to tell the front from the back! Either stitch a pocket, add a bow, or a button, or even an appliqué! (although, iron and polyester are a bad plan… so no iron ons unless you used some sort of natural fiber!)

THEN the most brilliant (my favorite) part, you know how pj pants usually have grippers on the  feet? Well I saw this on another website, but I made it my own! (couldn’t find the first website, sorry!) Take some AWESOME puffy fabric paint (I totally used glow in the dark!!) and paint fun designs on the bottom of the feet! Oh my gosh, so cute! I smile so much when I am nursing her at night and can see her cute patterned feet! I didn’t get a picture of the monsters paint yet, but I totally made the monsters shooting laser beams and gave them fur! Or you could do polka dots… or wouldn’t it be funny to give Cinderella a mustache or devil horns? Hehe,  just kidding! Gosh, these monsters are a bad influence!

Happy sewing!