I'm sure people have other ways to make these, but here is my basic method. To do this SA, you'll need (a) lots of scraps, (b) a two-piece basic pants pattern, (c) enough fabric for the pants pattern, (d) elastic for the waist, and (e) coordinating fabric to line the insides of the side panels.

1. Start with your scrap basket and find scraps that are at least 5" wide and 3" tall. All of them should be cut to 5" wide, but the height can vary if you want the side panels to have different sized patchwork. I cut mine 3"-5" tall. Then, line them up in the order you'd like them to be, from top to bottom, and serge them together. I do pin mine before serging--I'm a pin freak. You need to make two strips of patchwork; one for each side of the pants.

Here is a photo of some of the scraps before serging:


After serging, from the backside


2. Once you have serged all of the scraps together for the side panels, measure them and make sure each side panel is at least as long as the outseam measurement of your pants pattern.

Here is one entire patchy strip, after serging, from the backside:


3. Take the coordinating fabric (Sam picked this moon and stars cotton woven, but I usually use a tonal batik) and cut two long rectangular pieces to fit each strip of patchwork. Pin and serge around all 4 edges for each side panel.

Here are the strips pinned to the coordinating fabric before serging:



And after serging:


4. Set aside the patchwork panels, and cut out the pants. I used medium-wale hemp/cotton cord which I coffee-dyed last night. It's a little darker than the original natural color. Some people take in the width of each of the pieces when they are cutting them, but I like the pants nice and full, so I cut out the pattern without any changes.

Here are my pants pieces, right sides of fabric together:


5. Take one patchy side panel, one front pants piece, and one back pants piece. Pin one side of the side panel to the outseam of the front pants piece. Pin the other side of the side panel to the outseam of the back pants piece. Photos:



6. Serge along where you have pinned, attaching the side panel to the outseams of the front and back pants pieces.

Repeat with the other side panel piece and the two remaining front and back pants pieces. You will end up with two mirror image pieces of the above photo, and here is what they will look like on the right side:


7. Right sides together, pin the front and back rises of the pants.

Serge the rise from back to front.


8. Open up the pants so that you can pin the inseam from ankle to ankle, making sure you match the crotch points exactly.

Serge the inseam from ankle to ankle. Turn right side out, and your pants will look like this:

At this point, I have also serged around the waist and around each ankle hem to finish the fabric and keep it from fraying.

9. Turn back inside out. Turn waist over about 1" (or enough to accommodate the width of your elastic), pin, and stitch, leaving enough of an opening to feed the elastic (which is shown here with a big safety pin). I've also added a size tag and a decorative sun tag (from Allison).

After you feed the elastic all the way through, overlap the edges of the elastic slightly and stitch to attach them. Then, stitch closed the opening in the waist. It will look like this:

I've also added a decorative leaf tag (from Serena) on the outside of the back of the waist--the colors really matched the side panels:


10. Now you're ready to hem the ankles.


And voila, they are done:


And modeled--I left these hemmed a little long for my fast-growing boy:

Sam asked for a haircut this morning! :cry:

I've also made these pants with batiks for the patches and thinwale cord for the body of the pants, and denim for the body and cord for the patches. Have fun, I can't wait to see some sew and shows from this sew-along! Let me know if you have any questions.

Tara