What’s adorable and easy to sew in under an hour? These knit baby leggings! We can’t get over them. They 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. Save this free pattern and tutorial–you’ll definitely want to make more than one pair.
Let’s make baby leggings! First, you want a stretchy fabric. I’m obsessed with Spoonflower’s Organic Cotton Knit—it’s super soft, a little thicker than many jersey knits and it makes awesome baby clothes.
The free pattern has sizing for 6M to 5T. With one fat quarter, you can make a great pair for a newborn to 6 months. Get a yard of your favorite design to make sizes 2T-5T!
Materials to Make Baby Leggings
- Leggings pattern
- Organic Cotton Knit — one fat quarter for size 6 months, one yard for sizes 2T-5T
- Matching thread
- 17.5” of ¾” wide elastic
- Scissors
- Pins or clips
- Sewing machine
Steps to Make Baby and Toddler Leggings
Step 1: Cut Out Your Pattern
Lay the fabric out and fold each end inwards. Pin the pattern piece in place along the fold and cut out our fabric. Repeat for the other side of the fabric.
Step 2: Cut Out Rectangles for Cuffs
From the remaining fabric in the center, cut two rectangles. The stretch of your fabric should be going across the width of your cuff and your rectangle should be 6.25” wide and 4” tall.
Step 3: Pin and Sew the Pieces Together
Open up the pattern pieces and place the right sides of the fabric together. The wider edge is the waistband. Pin from sides of waist to where the fabric makes a point. Sew together with a straight stitch and a 1/2″ seam allowance.
Step 4: Flip, Pin and Sew the Inseam
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.
Step 5: Stitch the Waistband
Turn leggings right side out. Fold about ¼ – ½” of the waistband over and straight stitch around the top.
Step 6: Add the Elastic
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!
Step 7: Sew the Cuffs
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.
You can also skip the cuffs and just finish the bottoms with a rolled hem!
Step 8: Attach the Cuffs
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!
Hi, I love your tutorials but I am French and I don’t know what 2T-3T-4T_5T correspond to.I guess T is for toddlers, but what’s the equivalent for 12 months please ? thanks for your answer ! have a nice day.Nadine
Hi Nadine, glad to hear you love our tutorials! 🙂
2T, 3T, 4T and 5T are sizes for toddlers. So a 2T is for a 2-year-old toddler, a 3T is for a 3-year-old toddler, etc.
However, as toddlers, like people, come in all different sizes, you could always print out the toddler pattern and measure the child’s waist (as the toddler leggings pattern notes) and keeping seam allowances in mind, cut out the pattern that best suits your particular child. As the 2T pattern may either fit your 12-month-old child now or will sometime soon!
You might also have a look at this sew-along post which recommends a pattern for footed leggings that is for 12-month-old children: https://blog.spoonflower.com/2015/10/25/sunday-sew-baby-leggings-with-footies/
Best,
Betsy
Spoonflower
These are very cute and easy to sew together. I would strongly recommend ordering a yard of the fabric you intend on using for the leggings. I made the 6 month old size and didn\\\’t have enough fabric to make the cuffs from a fat quarter. There was no way I had 6.25 inches in width leftover, I maybe had 4.5-4.75 inches at the most. I ordered several different fat quarter designs and I had to use a coordinating knit with all of them to finish the cuff.
Hi Ruth,
It looks like this post is nearly 10 years old and others have commented about the measurement issue you’re referring to, or other pattern issues in general– incorrect sizes listed are obviously not ideal and I’m so sorry that a fat quarter did not work well for this project! One of my long-term goals here at Spoonflower is to update and perfect our older sewing-based blog content– I will look into testing this pattern to see what works best and update the post based on my findings.
Thank you so much for your feedback. We’re always looking for ways to improve the blog!
Crafty regards,
Anna
Spoonflower
This pattern goes from 6 mos. and jumps to 2T. Is there a pattern for 9, 12, 18 mos.??
I just ordered organic cotton knit and I’m looking forward to making a pair of leggings.
Thank you for your help!
Hi Paige,
This pattern only comes in these two sizes, very sorry about that! You could experiment with 9-18 month and other sizing by modifying the pattern and creating a mock up pair of leggings with a cheaper stretch fabric. Before cutting out the leggings pattern piece, extend the edges out by a half inch and draw a border around the pattern to indicate that measurement, adding a half inch each time you think you need to go a little bigger until you’ve reached the desired size. We also have this leggings tutorial that uses an old pair of leggings as a base pattern, for both adults and children. Hope this helps!
Happy sewing,
Anna
Spoonflower
“Knit baby leggings with Meridith”
after reading the blog Meridith suggested the second page was the extension for the legging. If so where is the pattern piece for the cuff please?
Also others commented the pattern did not fit properly and Meridith replied this would be corrected on an updated pattern. Could I have the updated version with the cuff pattern? Where can I find it.
Thank you so much. I am looking forward to sewing.
Trina
Hi Trina,
The updated pattern can be found in the materials section of this tutorial, or you can follow these links below:
6 months size
2T-5T sizes
The cuff part of the pattern is on the very last page of each of these pattern files.
Happy sewing!
Anna
Spoonflower
Great tutorial and pattern. However, I am finding that the 6 month size looks smaller than a normal 6 month size. Is there a simple way to upsize this pattern to a 9 or 12 month size?
Hi Elizabeth! This tutorial uses a lining fabric, which is why the seams are encased. Try checking out our video tutorial embedded in this blog post for a closer look. I hope that helps!
Hello, thanks for the great pattern! It doesn’t mention which way the orientation of the 6.25″ x 4″ rectangle should be – should the stretch be across the long or short dimension? Thanks.
Hi there,
The stretch of your fabric should be going across the width of your cuff and your rectangle should be 6.25” wide and 4” tall. I hope that helps, but if you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask!
Take care,
Amy
Spoonflower
Any chance this could be updated to include other sizes? My nephew is 10 mo. and I don’t have access to his clothes nor the skills as a beginner to ‘create’ one
Hi Jillian, thanks for the feedback, and I apologize that we only have this free pattern available in two sizes! For a 10 month old, I would recommend the 2T version. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your nephew will grow into it! Best, Spoonflower
The 2-5T pattern is incorrect. The front and back of the pattern should have different “rises”. Front crotch length looks roughly correct. But back crotch rise probably needs at least an inch extra (approximately) in the rise tapering down to the front rise. Essentially, you either need separate pattern pieces or at least indicate on the pattern the back rise (crotch length) as it is not indicated- and really needs to be. Otherwise there will be insufficient butt coverage. . and as it stands the pattern does not work. please fix it.
Thanks
Hi Haydee,
Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention! We are working on an updated version of the 2-5T pattern and will link the pattern as soon as it’s available.
I would like a pattern for 12-18 months. Is this available?
Hi Meg,
This pattern only comes in the two sizes listed. You could experiment with other sizing by modifying the pattern and creating a mock up pair of leggings with a cheaper stretch fabric.
Before cutting out the 6-month leggings pattern piece, extend the edges out by an inch and draw a border around the pattern to indicate that measurement, adding a half inch each time you think you need to go a little bigger until you’ve reached the desired size. We also have this leggings tutorial that uses an old pair of leggings as a base pattern, for both adults and children. Hope this helps!
Happy sewing,
Anna
Spoonflower
Can you provide additional info on the 4 x4 test square…
Hi there!
Thanks so much for your question! Are you able to share what details you’re looking for? I look forward to hearing back from you soon!
Any recommendations for size 3 months?
For a 3 month old, we recommend using the 6 month pattern size. Better to be a bit too large than too small!
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!
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!
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!
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!
I don’t see the seam allowance noted anywhere?
Hi Cynthia,
For these leggings you’ll want to use a 1/2″ seam allowance!
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!
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 had the same problem with the pattern too. I cut out the cuff pieces the only way that they would fit on the remaining fabric.
When I went to atttach them to the legging I knew that they wouldn’t stretch enough to get the baby’s foot into the leg! I made a pattern piece with an arrow for the direction of the stretch so that I don’t have that problem in the future.
Unfortunately, I had to order more fabric since I had already cut out 5 different pair of legging because it looked so simple. I am waiting for more fabric now so that I can finish the cuffs! The 6 month looks pretty small in size. I am also waiting for them to try them on my granddaughter with the one that I finished with some spare white cotton knit that I had on hand before I bother finishing them and mailing them for Christmas.
Hi Jen,
We apologize for the unexpected trouble. It sounds like the stretch of the cuff may have been going in the wrong direction but we have updated the pattern to include more details. The stretch of your fabric should be going across the width of your cuff and your rectangle should be 6.25” wide and 4” tall.
Take care,
Amy
I’m having the same problem. I checked that my pattern was printed to scale. I specifically bought just a fat quarter for this pattern. It’s a directional print and I can only get one 4×6 cuff piece in the correct orientation from what is left after cutting out the two legs.
Hi Dani,
The updated pattern can be found in the materials section of this tutorial, so sorry for any confusion!
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.
thank you for this tutorial. It was very simple and helpful.
dr
If you need a few excuses to stay inside just a little longer yourself right about now,
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.
The 2-5T size needs a higher Back crotch rise, tapering to the front rise. at least an extra inch
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
No. . . because you never told us to do so! Fortunately, I figured out that the 2nd pattern piece (that I thought was for the cuffs) was actually supposed to be added to the top of the page 1 legging pattern. You need to tell people to line up the arrows on the 2 pattern pieces and tape them together.
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.
If you wanted to make additional sizes, how do you configure? Thanks 🙂
Hi Sarah! If possible, we recommend tracing a pair of leggings in the desired size to configure for a different size.
What size legging does a fat quarter make? TIA
6m!
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?
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!
^_^
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.
is the “cotton interlock” you refer to the same as the “organic cotton knit”?
Yes, the Cotton Interlock Knit is the same as our Organic Cotton Knit. Apologies for any confusion!
Oh so cute!
What a great tutorial.
^_^