Leggings are perhaps the most common fashions worn by young people. The fabric usually dictates whether or not the legging is suitable to wear in public. Although, I have frequently seen a college student roll out of bed and adorn pajama bottoms to class along with a matching sweat shirt!
Generally speaking, if leggings are made from flannel they are considered sleep wear. If they are made from fleece fabric, they are considered athletic wear and finally, if the legging is made from a fun knit print, children will where them anywhere!
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| Left, all four sizes of legging that I show here are 3 months for babies. Center, I cut the sides only of these small life size sweat pants so that the detailing of the front opening and the pockets would remain a part of my doll's version. Right, five altered leggings from left to right, flamingos on a knit print, stripes with stitched details and navy cuffs, polka-dots on a brown fleece, a fancier navy and white print and finally, a solid hot pink with pink stitching on the bottom. |
However, if the legging is for a doll the how and wear of it is always cute! It is also very simple to alter leggings from a real life infant size to a doll size!
Pull the leggings onto your doll and use straight pins to mark how much material on both the right and left leg that you will need to remove from the outer sides. If you are altering a small infant size legging, you will only need to make the outside leg adjustments, leaving the inner leg stitching intact. Remove the pinned legging from the doll and carefully cut away the unwanted fabric, leaving enough behind to sew a 1/4 to 1/2 seam allowance down each outer side. I don't even bother to remove the old elastic at the waist, I just alter the waist along with the pant legs all at once.
After sewing the new narrower pant legs using a straight stitch, I then run my doll leggings through the machine using a zig-zag stitch to keep the material from unraveling.
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| Left, you can see me cutting and measuring the baby leggings to fit my 18" doll. Center the leggins are altered and on the doll. Right, here is a comparison of doll leggings against an infant size in real life. |
If I am measuring and cutting to alter a larger child pair of leggings, I will cut off the waistband to fit the doll and leave enough excess fabric to make a new gathered waistband to fit my doll's waist. This usually requires 1 1/2" of fabric at the top of the waist band along with a 1/4 to 1/2 inch fabric down the left and right side of the altered sides to make an acceptable alteration. Sew up the side seams with wrong sides together first.
Then fold back the 1 1/2" seam at the waist on the inside of the legging. Turn under a consistent narrow seam to create a long narrow pocket at the waist, leaving open 1/2 inch for the new elastic to be inserted. Clip a safety pin through your elastic and thread it through the pocket for the waistband. Pull both ends together through the opening and sew a very strong short seam across the two ends. Clip the excess elastic away and tuck the rest back in. Whip stitch the opening shut.
The amount of elastic you will need for your doll's waistband will depend on the type of doll you have. I do not use exact measurements when using this notion. I do something my grandmother once called "eyeballing it" which means to determine the proportions by guesswork. In other words, look to see what appears most pleasing in the gathering of the material as you sew with it. Some people like tight waistbands in their doll leggings, some folks don't.
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| Left, a doll size legging compared with a 3 month old size. Center, a legging sewn for a doll in red from scratch compared against an altered pair cut from a 12 month size. I will need to hem the bottoms. Right, another stack of leggings for our 18" dolls. Most of them are floral prints but the one on top is a grey pair of doll sweat pants. |
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