Refashion Friday: Knitwear Baby Trousers

Now this of course is not a new idea. Heaps of peops have turned unwanted knitwear into cosy baby trousers before (in fact I've done it before myself) because it's just such a blooming good idea! I decided to make some for our imminent Missy after buying a baby carrier at a nearly-new sale last weekend. I swiftly realised that her little legs might get mighty chilly hanging out the bottom of the carrier during Winter. See? It's not all pretty-and-everything-but-potentially-not-going-to-get-used-much baby sewing round here!   

Probably much to Pat's annoyance, I've been carting round a large bin bag full of old jumpers and scraps of knitwear during the last couple of flat moves we've made. Some of the knitwear was harvested from the embers of the TRAIDremade studio, and then when friends found out I was collecting unwanted knitwear I also got donated a fair bit. Last Christmas I was using it to make lots of pairs of mittens to sell at craft fairs, which was a great success. Then I gave most of the leftover stock as Christmas presents (genius, no?!). I had every intention of making and selling more mittens again this Christmas, but with Missy on her way and the loss of the 'thrill of the new' means that I know I probably won't. Plus all the women I know already have a pair of my mittens now so all the left over stock would end up sitting around at the end of this Christmas's selling season! 

So I delved into my knitwear stash and found a few garments to have a whirl at turning into baby trousers. The wool jumper pictured above, for example, used to be Pat's. It finally lost the battle against moths and I put it in a hot wash to felt it up in preparation for making mittens. Instead it's become the warmest of the pairs of baby trousers! 

I decided to use the same pattern as the recent jersey trouser making marathon I went on. The pattern is so easy to construct and I prefer the narrower leg than the previous baby trousers I've made in the past. I had to restrain myself to only cutting out three pairs to see how they went (cut out pieces pictured above). When I come across a quick project like this, my natural inclination is to go mental and MAKE ALL THE THINGS, but until I know how useful they'll be to us, it seemed a bit pointless to make more. 

When I made the jumper trousers for baby Joe, his mama Sophie requested that I make them extra long. Her thinking was that the trousers could be rolled up at the bottom and last a long time. Apparently, those trousers are still going strong nearly two years later (although she did have to replace the waist elastic to make them more accommodating a year in). I took that into account when making these for our Missy and made the size bigger than she'll probably need this Winter, plus added extra length to the leg. That way we can roll them up this year (see above) but hopefully she'll get two years worth of wear from them. Hurrah for potentially-practical baby sewing!