Gotta love adjustable waistbands!

Anyone with growing or grown kids knows that they reach stages when they grow out of clothes before they wear out of them. We are blessed with friends that pass on their hand-me-downs. Shorts, ski jackets and pants and other extra-cold climate apparel, boots, sandals, as well as lots of shirts and regular pants have made a regular series of very welcome appearances at our house. We call it the E Collection.  Well, Offspring wore out the seat of one pair of shorts recently and I really did not want to have to go shop for more and did not think it likely we would even find any left in the stores. So we rummaged around in the drawer of the E Collection and found the perfect pair. And I don’t know about you, but I positively adore the inventor of the adjustable waistband that is becoming standard issue on kids’ pants. I have lost track of the hours and gallons of gas traipsing all over our metropolitan area to find uniform pants and jeans that fit. Before adjustable waistbands, Offspring once had to try on 17 pairs of jeans to find one, I repeat, one pair that fit even somewhat. Perhaps I should clarify that. Seventeen pairs of the same size, same brand, same cut that came the closest and then looking for the one pair that did not immediately drop to his ankles and in which he could still bend over without cutting off the blood supply to his lower extremities. Well, the adjustable waistband changed all that for us. Life is good!

Well, back to my story. This pair of shorts from the E Collection? Only one problem. They had an adjustable band. “What?!” you say? How could that be a problem?

See? The elastic “buttonholes” had coalesced into one very looooong buttonhole.

My solution? To replace the elastic. Not so quick! The elastic was sewn into the middle of the back waistband (so that it doesn’t pull out). So first I had to open up the back waistband and happily the beltloop was not sewn into that seam. I found that the elastic was sewn onto a small strip of fabric just hanging free in the casing so I ripped out that stitching.

The next step was to take a piece of elastic, fold the ends back and stitch them down. After that I made three buttonholes, on each end, for a total of six. Thank goodness my sewing machine has an automatic setting that replicates the first one. Then I restitiched the middle of the elastic to that little flap of fabric, threaded each half into the waistband, and cut open only the buttonholes that were needed.

The hardest part was resewing the waistband. I couldn’t sew under the belt loop in one straight line so I just divvied it up, starting from each outward edge and sewing as far as I could with the belt loop smushed out of the way, and then repeating from the other side. Ta-da!

I think it took me all of 30 minutes, maybe 40. And most of that was refreshing myself on how to make buttonholes with my machine.

When the time comes we will pass on this pair of shorts to another weed who is growing so very fast. We will have helped someone else who may not have the time, sewing skills, or the access to a sewing machine to extend the life of another piece of clothing. Now that is the green way of doing things! One person at a time, doing one little thing here and there. It all adds up.  (It also helped to pass the time while listening to the cacophony of roofers replacing our roof.)  One more thing to check off my list(s)!