Baby shorts

A friend called me yesterday while she was out trying to find some shorts for her one year old daughter. She was frustrated that all of the shorts were around ten dollars. Have you seen how little fabric those things are made of?! Ridiculous. It takes less than a half yard of fabric to make.

So of course I offered to make some shorts! 

I had made my 3 year old a few pairs this year, but the patterns used seemed very masculine. I didn't want to buy a new pattern considering I was aiming to be way below 10 dollars for the project. Then I remembered I had just bought a pattern from peek a boo pattern shop that seemed to fit the bill perfectly. 

I purchased two half yards at JoAnn's of some gray quilting cotton and some girly buttons. Total for the buttons and fabric? 8 Dollars. 

I chose to go with the quilting cotton as opposed to a bottom weight or linen because I wanted something lightweight and didn't want to deal with the wrinkling of the linen. Also, all the linens felt very masculine to me for some reason...weird I know.

I cut all the pieces out and then read the directions...terrible I know. It was then I discovered that the 18 month size ran small. Really?! Ugh. So I decided to go with a 1/4 inch seam allowance as opposed to the 1/2 inch called for in the pattern.

They came out exactly as I had hoped and took a couple of hours start to finish for the first pair. This was the pair that I followed the pattern exactly as written.

For the second pair, I wanted something more basic so I traced the front and back pieces but took a lot off of the leg length. They are just plain Jane shorts but I think it works with the polka dots. I was able to get the pair from the remainder of the contrast from the first pair.

For the last pair I just used some bottom weight khaki fabric I had left over. The fabric itself felt boyish, so I added some pink piping on the side seams. 

Total cost for the 3 pairs? Less than ten dollars. Time invested? Less than 5 hours.

This is exactly why I need a little girl :)