How To Make An Adjustable Waist For Your Pants

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Inside: How to make an adjustable waist pants. DIY your store bought pants to make it fit better.

Do you have this problem? You buy a pant for your child. The label says it is the age your child is but when you bring it home and try it on them, the waist is too big and the little guy/girl can’t hold it up.

What to do? Most brands are making pants with adjustable waists these days but what about when you can’t find one? I always have that problem with my children’s school pants!

How about make an adjustable waist for the pants, yourself? It is quite easy. You hardly need four things and zero sewing skills, literally! Here is how to go about it:

Materials

1. Pants that need modification
2. Elastic Band (1and half inch wide or whatever will pass through the waist band of your pants)
3. Two medium sized flat buttons
4. Needle with thread of colour to match the pants

How to proceed

 You will need an elastic band that is atleast 1 and half inch wide. This is easily available at tailoring shops. I have seen these at DIY shops too.

The pants that need modification. You can make adjustment to jeans too. I have done it. You can make an adjustable waist to any size pants – kid size or adult. You can even make an adjustable waist on skirts.

I prefer to lace the belt around the pants like a belt. This way you know exactly how much you need and that extra inch or so for the hemming too. Lay the pants out flat before you lace it on like a belt.

Before cutting the elastic band fold it in (as much as would need hemming) so you know how much shorter it will be.

This is what the elastic band will look like when cut. Notice the edges?

Fold it in and sew it, either on a sewing machine or you can do it by hand too. This is to prevent the edges from fraying.

Open up your pants and lay them flat. When you look closely, you will notice that there is a line of stitching that runs straight from one side to the other. This is to prevent the cloth of your waist from being lose. Undo this stitching. How? Just pull at one of the threads and cut. The other side will show lose thread. Pull at it again. Turn, pull the lose thread again. Go on doing this till you have undone the whole line.

Notice that there is a stitching where the band joins the front part of the pants? You will need to make a slit in the band there. Use a very sharp pointed scissors and insert it into the band of the waist. You will be cutting just the cloth and the not the band.

You should be able to insert your finger into the slit that you made in the previous step. Remember, you are cutting just the cloth.

Use a pen to mark lines in the middle of the band like I have shown in the picture. Make these markings on both ends of the elastic band. You will need to cut on these lines with a very sharp scissors. This will be the belt that will make the pants to have an adjustable waist. You can have as many as you like and if you like, you can make these slits all to the other end. Remember to be very careful in that you make it very straight and very precise. If you cut it wrong, the elastic or the threads will fray or get pulled.

The belt that we created in the last step will be attached on a button on the inner band of your waist. Attach a button a few inches from the slit. You can either attach the button all the way through your band (the stitch showing on the right side) or you can just stitch on to the front part of the cloth (stitch not showing on the right side). It doesn’t matter if the stitch is visible because it will be too small to notice and most of the time, it is well hidden with a belt or your shirt.

The slit that we made will need to be hemmed in or you can use a button-hole stitch to hide in the cut edge showing.

Insert the band into the slit that we had created. Push it in using a safety pin or pen from one end to the other.

 Attach the Elastic band to the pants on both ends first. This is done by buttoning on the first slit on the elastic band.

Once the band is attached, you can now safely wear it and make it your size. Just pull the elastic band from both ends away from yourself and then button on the slit that feels most comfortable.

Ta da! Done.

Any questions? If you use my tutorial, do share a pic or let me know. I’d love to hear from you as it encourages me to make more tutorials.

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