Once I'd started with paper bag tops, I couldn't stop! So I made 4 things: 1 pair of trousers and 2 pairs of shorts from a pattern, and a skirt from my own design.
First, here's my initial inspiration. My friend bought these cute baggy legged trousers for her little grand-daughter, who is about 18 months' old. But there were not suitable bigger sizes for Ada, who will be 3 in summer (and these are definitely summer trousers).
The front:
The style is wide-legged, with the wide legs gathered into elastic at the bottom, and the top is made into a 'paper bag' style, by means of several rows of shirring. But what makes them especially cute is the front pockets detail, hard to see on the above picture. It's blown up a bit, below. The small (mainly decorative) pockets are gathered at the top, and have ties with little beads on them.
Pocket detail:
I'm not altogether convinced about the beads with a crawling child - once s/he has knelt on the beads, there may be a refusal to wear them again! But on the originals these may be high enough up the leg not to get knelt on, and it's easy to remove them. For my version, that was one feature I wouldn't copy. But I did like the look of the ties. They are so cute!
I made mine a little on the long side for Ada, 2 1/2. She'll be wearing them in the summer, in a few months' time, so that was deliberate. This is just the try on.
Here's the seersucker 100% cotton that I had bought in India. It was a remnant, so barely enough to consider trousers, even for a 2 and a bit year old. Very pretty, though. I figured it would go with almost any colour, except, possibly, the navy-and-pink top she happens to be wearing for the try-on!. But tops in red, green, gold, orange, turquoise, violet, olive green or blue, or of course, brown, would be perfect!
I could see that the only way I would get trousers out of this piece was to make a separate yoke (or very deep waistband) at the top, reversing the direction of the fabric. (The yoke isn't actually quite as deep as it may look in the pictures - the pockets below the yoke also have the same direction of stripe.) I had used this approach on some pirate trousers for her sister, which you'll find at the bottom of the linked post.) I had to get the pockets and ties out of the scraps around the legs.
In fact, I was SO tight on fabric, that this was literally all I had left at the end!
In order to squeeze out the trousers, I had to first overlap my pattern pieces. I used Simplicity 1453 CHILD, but the same might apply to any pattern with a fairly straight side seam. This was a pattern that had a separate front and back, but the side seams were (almost) straight, so I saw no reason not to join them, and by overlapping and eliminating the need for the 5/8" seam allowances, I was saving at least an inch and a quarter on the width of fabric needed for each leg. (Yes, it was that tight!) This picture shows the two pattern pieces over-lapped. I hadn't at this point folded in the pattern to give my the size 3 cutting lines.
I could get the legs up to above the crutch level in one direction of the fabric, leaving me to make the yoke at right angles. You can't get away with this turning at right angles with all fabrics, but this was a very stable fabric. I didn't picture the cutting out, but it's reasonable to suppose that the lower legs were cut to about where the double lines across are on the pattern, plus seam allowance. (This is the 'length or shorten here' line.) And I used the top of the pattern plus a bit (more about that below) to cut the yoke. I did the yoke as one piece all the way round, i.e. with just a centre back seam. After making up the lower legs, I attached the yoke, and faced the seam with some bias tape to cover the raw edges. I also used some bias tape to form the channel for elastic on the bottom of the legs - I just didn't have enough fabric to turn up the bottoms!
Pictures showing inside of top and ankles
Now just a note about the plus a bit above. This is at the essence of the paper bag top. The pattern pieces have the finished waistline marked. (Shown by the arrow here.)
I wanted to have about three-quarters of an inch of frill above the waistline. So, doubling that (to make the frill double layered) I added about 1 3/4" to the pattern piece at the top. I could then fold it down so the fold line was about 3/4" to 7/8" above the waistline, and make a new hem about 1 3/4" deep. Then, adding in 3/4" elastic to the lower part of that hem, I'd still have my frill above it. I explain this more fully in the tutorial.
I turned in the bottom hem of the new waistband and sewed close to the bottom edge, leaving a gap of about 2-3" to thread the elastic through. Then, I sewed another seam about 7/8" above that one (not leaving a gap this time) thus forming the elastic casing. To make sure I had a wide enough casing to get the elastic through, I placed a spare bit of elastic on top of the hem so that I could run close to that. This is on another paper bag top.
I was then able to thread the elastic through and join it up, and close the gap in the lower seam. One the elastic was pulled up, this had the effect of gathering the frill at the top. Here's what is looks like on the child. (These look a bit extra baggy, as I'd sized up so she could wear them in summer.)
Worn below with Izzy top that once belonged to her sister. Another favourite pattern.
To get the full tutorial for paper bag style waistline, watch out for the tutorial!
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