How to take in the waist of an elastic pair of pants
I have this pair of pants that I like, but the waistband is a bit big, so if I put my phone in my pocket, my pants fall down! I decided to take in the waist of these pants. They had an elastic waistband. This seemed difficult to take in since at first I thought I would have to take all the elastic out and re-sew it. I found an easier solution! I added a drawstring to my pants, which took about an hour and now my pants fit! You will need a pair of pants with an elastic waistband, scissors, needle, thread, and a drawstring (you can use a long shoelace)
Make sure your pants will work for this project
You need to make sure you will be able to pull a drawstring through your waistband. First, your pants should be an elastic waistband or other waistband that has a casing all the way around the top. Next you should make sure there isn’t any vertical stitching that keeps the drawstring from going all the way around. I had to remove a tag from my waistband before I started.
Create the eyelet
Find the middle front of your pants and measure one inch out from each side. Make a small vertical slit in your fabric. Make sure the slit is in the middle of your waistband and be sure to only cut the top most layer of the pants. Next, you will need to hand sew around the slits, like you would for buttonholes. This will keep your eyelet from fraying or ripping when you use it.
Make sure you are sewing small looping stitches around the slits. Include a couple knots at the top and bottom of each slit, this will help reinforce the areas that are under the most tension.
Pull the drawstring through your pants
The last step is to pull the drawstring through your pants, if the drawstring you’re using doesn’t have a hard aglet, you will need to put a safety pin through it. Then you need to guide the drawstring through the eyelet. Scrunch the fabric and pull the aglet/safety pin all the way to the other eyelet and even out your strings. That’s it now that you added a drawstring to a pair of pants, you can tighten them as needed!!
