What’s adorable, uses only a quarter yard of fabric, and sews up in under an hour? These knit baby leggings! We can’t get over them. These things are as easy to make as they are cute (and they’re really cute). Join Spoonflower friend and contributor Anda Corrie as she walks you through these DIY knit leggings, available in sizes 6 months – 5T, and bookmark this page–you’ll definitely want to make more than one pair. More of an audio/visual learner? Skip down to the bottom of the post and check out the step-by-step video with Spoonflower team member Meredith. Let’s get started!
Luxe Chevron in Mint, Coral and Gold Dust by Willowlanetextiles
Anda: Let’s make baby leggings! First, you want a stretchy fabric. I’m obsessed with Spoonflower’s Organic Cotton knit at the moment— it’s super soft, a little thicker than many jersey knits, and I find it makes awesome baby clothes. There are many different knits available at Spoonflower, so choose the knit fabric that’s right for you. The pattern I’ve included for download is for size 6m. If you have a favorite pair of leggings that already fit your child, try folding them in half like the pattern demonstrates and tracing them instead. It will be hard to make any sizes larger than 9m with a fat quarter, however, so be sure to check your leggings size when ordering your fabric.
Supplies:
- Leggings pattern
- Your favorite knit fabric – we’re using Organic Cotton Knit
- One fat quarter for size 6 months
- One yard for sizes 2T-5T
- Matching thread (polyester or cotton will both work fine)
- 17.5” of ¾” wide elastic
- Scissors
- Pins
- A sewing machine!
Lay the fabric out and fold each end inwards like shown. Pin the pattern piece in place along the fold and cut out our fabric. Repeat for the other side of the fabric.
From the remaining fabric in the center, cut two 4” x 6.25” rectangles.
Open up the pattern pieces and place with right sides facing. The wider edge is the waistband. Pin from sides of waist to where the fabric makes a point and sew with a straight stitch and a 1/2″ seam allowance.
Next, open up the pants so the seams you’ve just sewn are now in the center instead of on the sides. They should resemble baby leggings at this point. Line up the legs as shown, pin, and sew along the inseam.
Turn leggings right side out. Fold about ¼ – ½” of the waistband over and straight stitch around the top.
I like to stitch the elastic directly to the back of the leggings to keep it in place. After doing this, fold over about 1” of fabric around the elastic and stitch. Be careful not to catch the elastic as you go!
Straight stitch along the short end of each 4″ x 6.25” rectangle, making two little tubes. Fold them in half and then put them over the bottom of each pant leg, with raw seams all together.
Zig zag stitch around raw seams, turn right side out and you’re all done. Now you’ve got a perfect, snuggly pair of leggings for your little one. Stitch up a few more in coordinating colors, or sew one and gift to a friend!
Don’t stop at just leggings! Create the perfect toddler tee in under an hour with this step by step tutorial.
About Our Guest Blogger
Anda Lewis Corrie is an illustrator, designer and artist living in Berlin with her little family. She likes sharing ideas, seasonal cocktails, drawing on every surface that can be drawn on, and she takes too many vacations.
Oh so cute!
What a great tutorial.
^_^
is the “cotton interlock” you refer to the same as the “organic cotton knit”?
Oh you’re right! I am stuck in the past (interlock knit was the old knit fabric Spoonflower sold.) I will try to get that corrected—it is organic cotton knit.
I had to release this fabric — http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/205744 — just because of this tutorial.
I think it would be sweet little baby leggings in the organic cotton knit!
Again, super wonderful tutorial Anda, well done!
^_^
So confused. Just sewed together the legs and unless these are meant to be major bumsters, I did something wrong. The rise is like 2″ before you fold it over for the waistband. I cut the long straight edge of the pattern (marked “cut on fold”) on the fold. Is this not right?
What size legging does a fat quarter make? TIA
6m!
If you wanted to make additional sizes, how do you configure? Thanks 🙂
Hi, Sarah,
Anda’s included a pattern here for size 6m. If you have a favorite pair of leggings that already fit your child, try folding them in half like the pattern demonstrates and tracing them instead.
That pattern is bad. The seam for the waist and butt is completely short. Don’t waste your fabric. I added an additional three inches the pattern at the top. Hopefully this fixes it.
thanks so much for your feedback, Jay Lee! We’ll look into this and update the pattern if we can make improvements
This patter for the 6mos size absolutely does not work. As someone else said there is nowhere near enough room from the leg seam up to the waist . I added over an inch and still doesn’t work. Wasted my fabric.
Hi Julie,
We’re so sorry to hear there was an issue with the pattern. We are doing some testing on our end to see what the issue might be but in the meantime, did you attach the page 2 pattern piece to the top of the page 1 pattern piece? Thanks for any additional details you might have! – Meredith
If you need a few excuses to stay inside just a little longer yourself right about now,
thank you for this tutorial. It was very simple and helpful.
dr
Hi~ I just tried to cut the pieces for this pattern and there is no way there is even remotely enough fabric left for the cuff pieces after cutting out the pattern pieces from a fat quarter. I’m so disappointed! Has anyone had this problem?
I am also having this issue with the pair I’m in the process of making. I have a second fat quarter for another pair and I keep looking at it to see if I laid the pattern for the first pair out wrong. I’m pretty sure that I did not. Pretty bummed but thinking I’ll just hem the pants without doing a cuff.
I wanted newborn leggings so I decreased the pattern by 20% when printing and give it a whirl. It came out pretty close and sewed up in no time. Thanks for the great pattern!
I don’t see the seam allowance noted anywhere?
Hi Cynthia,
For these leggings you’ll want to use a 1/2″ seam allowance!
The type of diaper makes a difference in measurement. Before cutting and sewing, measure realistically how much fabric is needed with diaper on. Just switching from cloth to disposable in a day, can make any pants fall off!
These look easy enough even for me, think I will give it a try. Thank you
We’d love to see how yours turn out!
On the 6m pattern and the toddler pattern I believe it should NOT SAY \”cut on fold\”, but it should say \”place on fold\”.
She showed this in the video, but it was a little confusing when I saw the \”cut on fold\” on the pattern.
Thanks for the video!
I can\’t wait to try this pattern and sew leggings for my three new grand-babies!
Is there a way to adapt the pattern for a 12 month size?
Hi Judy,
We recommend tracing an existing pair of 12 month size leggings. Here’s a helpful tutorial to show you how to do that!