Mermaid Pants

My daughter Olivia had a green pair of pants that she never wore. There were a hand-me-down from our neighbor in Jackson Park. I always wondered what I could do with them, because we didn't have anything to match them because they were just a strange color.

 Yup that's them! I had a weird dream one night about wearing mermaid pants, I awoke thinking "I'm sure Olivia would love to wear mermaid pants," and that's where I got the idea to turn these green pants into mermaid pants

 I started off by measuring around the bottom of the pants. So yeah 7 inches. I decided that I wanted the first strips of fabric to start and stop about half an inch form the inseam (I was making this all up as I went, so bear with me).

I cut 4 strips of fabric measuring 12 inches by 3 inches.

Then I rounded the top corners,

and I sewed them together making them 2 strips.

Time for pinning!

I pinned an inch of fabric, then an inch of folded over fabric, to make a ruffled effect.

Then I sewed all the way around.

Next was triangles. Since the pants were 7 inches at the bottom, I measured 8 inched of fabric for the bottom of the triangle.

I marked the beginning, the end, and half way.

From the half way mark, I measured up 6 inches, and from there drew a line from that mark to both of the ends, this make up the other sides of the triangle.

I maked 4 triangles

then sewed them together to make 2 (yes this does look like a bikini top).

Next I pinned and sewed them onto the bottom of the pants, under the previous strip of fabric.

All done! I would have taken more photos of after, but she run off after that. :)