My son recently got a huge hole in his jeans, as kids do, and I took the obvious decision to cut them into shorts.


I didn't want to just hem them though, boring! So I took out my scraps of binding and let him chose which one he wanted on his shorts. He picked the orange gingham bias binding - clever boy!
I'm sure this has been done many times but here's my tutorial on how I did it.

Cut the strips of binding (this happened to be all I had left!). I didn't properly measure just ran it round the leg and added a bit extra.


Turn the shorts inside out. Leave a tail of binding (don't start at the short edge because you need to sew the edges of the binding together). Since this was ready made binding I just opened it out and sewed along the crease.


When you get close to where you started sewing stop with enough room to match the ends. I do this by folding back the edges so they butt up against each other and trimming off any extra to leave a rough 1/4" seam.


Sew the ends right sides together along the crease you made. Finger press the seams open.


Go back to where you stopped sewing and carry on sewing all the way around.


Turn the shorts the right way round, pull the binding through and fold over the front of the shorts.


I don't bother pressing or pinning but feel free if you want to. Topstitch along the top edge of the binding to finish. I move my needle over to the left and use my foot as a guide to get a neat line.



Then you have one cool looking kid!



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