DIY 10 minute ribbon loop shorts

 

*DISCLAIMER*

The following tutorial pictures are very bad. They were taken indoors, at night, with my poopy camera. They don’t do these cutie pie shorts any justice. It is exactly 11:37 pm and I just finished making these shorts about 45 minutes ago.

“But you said in your title the shorts only take 10 minutes?”

  Yes, the shorts did only take 10 minutes. Yes I timed myself. I did however forget to start timing until after my ribbon was cut. (So I guess the 10 minutes was kinda a lie! Yikes sorry about that, but still they didn’t take too long.) What did I do with the rest of the 35 minutes you ask? Why I spent that time trying to edit the yucky-ness out of my pictures of course. Guess what? It was a waste of 35 minutes. For serious. Just see for yourself…..

 

Here are the shorts…

Cute right? (try to look past the yucky picture) I think so. If you don’t really care for them you probably won’t want to read on, but if you {heart} them like I do keep going I’ll tell you how I did them!

*another DISCLAIMER*

I am not the genius behind this idea. (darn it) I’m pretty sure these babies have been around a looooooong time. I have seen it done to shorts. I have seen it done to pants. I have seen it done to skirts. I’ve tried them all and all are equally cute! I did not follow any tutorial to make these, in fact I probably do them all wrong. But, the way I do it works for me and it only takes 10 minutes. (give or take a few) How can you beat that?

 

Here is what you need:

• Shorts, skirt, or pants old, new, or used it all works here!
• ribbon scraps various colors and widths
• sewing machine
• thread

Here is what you do:

Cut your ribbon into your desired loop length and determine about how many cuts you will need. Lighter your ends so they don’t fray. (shh! I forgot that step don’t tell.)

Remember I’m just wannabe sewer. I’m pretty sure I tend to leave out some of the steps that a “real” sewer might use. One of my deep dark secrets is that I despise using pins. GASP!!! I know yikes right? I think I just heard all the seasoned seamstresses' jaws hit the floor! So if you decide you want to pin all your pieces in place first, go ahead. I’ll wait for you…….

Ok, are you back? Sweet! Let’s get started!

Place one leg of your shorts around your machine under your needle. At this point it doesn’t really matter too much where on the shorts you start your sewing.

Fold one end of a ribbon scrap up to meet the other end to form a loop

Awwww c’mon don’t be jealous of my manicure ladies. I have a sweet manicurist.

She’s fabulous! She’s free! She’s four! *wink*

 

This is where my tutorial goes a little wonky. I didn’t actually decide to do a tutorial until I was half done.  I already have a few loops sewn on in the next picture but you get the idea.

Keeping your ribbon in “loop” form place in on your pants right where you want it to lay and start sewing. Go slow and steady so that you can stop about midway through your loop, add another loop and keep going until you have finished all the way around.

I know, I know! If I would have just added a couple more steps and pinned my loops in place I could have avoided all that starting and stopping. This works for me though, so why fix it if it’s not broken? Am I right? LOL!

Here is what your finished leg will now look like…

Ha! I’m so laughing at myself right now. Notice my stitches don’t even line up? I told you I was just a wannabe! No worries though, next we're gonna cover that part up!

Take another piece of your choice color/width ribbon. Your gonna want this piece long enough to go around your pant leg. Measure if you prefer, but I just kept mine on the spool. *wink*

This time start at the inseam of your pants and sew the long ribbon piece right over the top of your ribbon loops. Make sure your are lining the edge of your top ribbon piece flush with the edges of your ribbon loops. Keep sewing all the way around until you reach your starting point. You can finish a couple different ways. Usually I fold under the edges of the top ribbon where they meet at the inseam and sew right over the fold. This time I wanted to go quick so I just sewed to where they met cut off the extra and lightered the edges so they don’t fray.

Repeat all of the above steps and wala! Your done!

Pair em’ with a matching shirt, a bow, or a sweet little clip and you’ve got yourself a totally cute, fantastically fast, semi homemade, boutique-ee looking outfit!

I’d love to see pictures if anyone decides to give it a try!

 

 

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