Little Lion Patterns

I’m a huge fan of upcycling old clothing into new items, and baby clothing is an especially good project to be made from upcycled materials as the pattern pieces are small enough to be cut from small pieces of fabric, like the front and back leg panels of adult pants or the torso of a button up shirt.

For this project, I used a pale pink men’s cotton shirt with a cute navy flamingo pattern that I found in a thrift shop here in Sydney to make a pair of cute baby summer shorts. I recycled for the breast pocket for the back pocket.

In the past, I’ve also used a pair of mens pants that were made from a reasonably lightweight woven material (such as cotton duck) or a large pair of mens shorts to cut up and transform into a pair of baby shorts.

If there’s not enough fabric to make the waistband in one piece, you can fold the pattern piece in half and add 1 cm (3/8 in.) to the length, then cut two pieces that you’ll then stitch together.

What you’ll need:

• Little Lion Baby Summer Shorts sewing pattern
• An old item of clothing from a thrift shop or your wardrobe. Make sure it has enough fabric to cut all the pattern pieces.
• Matching thread
• Elastic for waistband
• Sewing machine