Ruffled Bum Breeches

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  Step 1

  Find a pair of pants you’d like to cut up in your closet or a thrift store. I guess if you had a pair of crops or capris you wouldn’t have to mess with the length but I used the extra material to make the ruffled portion so you will need to find some fabric for the ruffle attachment if you start with capris.

  Put the pants on and mark the length where you’d like them to end once you’re done, then (with the pants off), make a line about 4 inches lower and cut the pants off here. For example, I wanted my pants to end just below the knee so four inches below that point, closer to the ankle opening, I made my cut. Repeat on both legs. Put the two pieces aside for later.

  Turn the pants inside out. Make a hem by folding over a ¼ inch twice and pinning in place. Cut two pieces of lace so that they will be long enough to go around the opening of the pants.

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  Step 2

  I chose to attach the lace to the hem and depending on how much lace you’d like to show you may want to modify how you attach it. My lace was a bit wide so I tucked it into the hem fold and then folded it over and pinned it all in place (see picture, note the pants are inside out). Stitch in place. Repeat with the other leg.

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  Step 3

  Next you’ll want to add some elastic so that the breeches will bunch at the bottom and stay in place. The length of the elastic will depend on the circumference of your leg at the point where you want the pants to fall and how stretchy your elastic is. The circumference of my leg where I wanted the pants to fall was about 14 inches and my elastic was very stretchy (meaning not very tight) and so I chose to use about 7 inch pieces. With the pants still inside out, make a line about 2 inches up from your hem (all the way around the leg). To sew the elastic in place, pull the elastic as you sew (see picture), keeping it over the line you drew as you sew. This takes a bit of practice to pull enough, and evenly, to get it all the way around and looking nice. It took me a couple times, and ripping out seams, before I got the hang of it. Turn inside out and put them on…

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  Step 4

  Admire your handy work thus far and, while staring at your bum, decide and mark where you want your ruffle attachment to start and end (see picture).

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  Step 5

  Conveniently, and also due to my laziness I decided, the extra bit of material from the cut off legs was just the right size for my ruffle attachment. Using one of the leg cut offs, I opened up one seam so I had one flat piece of fabric (you might be able to see the second seam I left running down the middle of the piece in the picture – this actually helped a lot with centering the piece later on…). Fold the newly opened sides in (toward the middle seam) and stitch to make a hem. Eventually, you will be folding the piece more or less in half so you will be attaching all the lace pieces to the inside of the pant leg, meaning the seams should be facing you when you are pinning and sewing the lace in place.
  Cut five pieces of lace the length of the width of your fabric. Note: this next bit was hard to explain, please see the picture for clarity. Take one piece of lace and attach it to the store-hemmed end of your fabric so that some of the lace extends past the end of the hem. Sew in place. On the opposite end of the fabric, draw four lines about 2 inches apart from one another (you’ll notice I had more than four lines – I had the intention to have more ruffles but I ran out of lace!). Starting at the bottom, pin and sew each of the remaining lace pieces in place. Note these lace pieces should be in the opposite direction of the first lace piece (see picture).

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  Step 6

  Next, fold the piece such that the top ruffle falls nicely over the bottom ruffles. Pin your piece in place using your marks on your pants and the mid-seam as your guides for placement. Sew along the top and down the sides just to the first layer of lace (such that about half the piece is not attached and flap-like).

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  Step 7

  Put the pants on again and decide where you want the “corset” to start and how wide you want you’d like the metal loops to be apart from one another. I made changes several times over the course of a couple days before I actually decided on my layout. I chose to do three rows with the loops about 5 inches apart (I used the mid seam as a guide for centering).

  To attach the loops, make fabric loops from the second leg cut off that is left over. My metal loops were an inch wide so I cut fabric rectangles that were 1.5 x 2 inches. Press them in half (so that they were 0.75 x 2 inches) then open them up and press the sides in towards the center so you’re left with a piece that’s 0.75 x 2 inches. Sew along the sides. Then fold the rectangle in about ¾, insert the loop, and then tuck the extra bit of fabric over the shorter end (so no raw edges are showing). Pin them all in place (I had six total) and lace up the corset and try it on so you can see if everything is as it should be – the right place, all even, etc. etc. If it’s all good – sew the fabric loops along the tucked over edge to hold them in place.

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  Step 8

  Lace up your fancy pants and enjoy!

Comments

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Pit Bull Mamma 11th August 2010

Hi. I wanted to say you did an awesome job on these. I looked at the original version on Etsy and am amazed that you were able to capture the details and do it yourself. I also love the colors-especially the lace.

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SyntheticStars · Eastleigh, England, GB · 31 projects 7th August 2010

These are amazing and I want them x

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