[eeloh]

Hello Liesl

I am doing the puppet show shorts as a gift for a child who lives interstate. So I’m taking a punt on the actual circumference, though I know she’s a size 2.

I am not experienced with sewing elastic, so I’m not sure how much to cut and then how long to stretch it.

Any help you could provide would be fantastic…. I seem to remember there was some sort of guide to elastic lengths on your sailboa pants but it was only the back that was elasticised, so iI guess it wouldn’t be a good guide for a full circle…

Any help would be lapped up gratefully…

Liz

[norasroom]

Hi, Liz,

I’m not Liesl, but I sew a lot of elastic waist skirts for other people’s children. A good rule of thumb is to cut the elastic one inch shorter than the child’s waist measurement; once you sew the ends together, it ends up being about the right amount of stretch. If you don’t know the actual waist measurement, you can use the corresponding waist measurement on the size chart, which is 21 inches for size 2T. That would make your elastic length about 20 inches. (Though to be perfectly honest, that sounds a little long to me. I use 19″ elastic for my 3T daughter).

Hope this helps! It sounds like a perfectly lovely gift.

[Liesl Gibson]

Thanks for answering this, Norasroom. I think that sounds about right, but I must say that S is a very skinny little girl so I often need to shorten the elastic from this rule of thumb. It really does depend on the child, so perhaps you can get a waist measurement from the parent and use Norasroom’s guide to cut the elastic accordingly?