Good morning! Sabra from Sew a Straight Line here to show off a little Retro Romper hack for you.
The Retro Romper from Blank Slate Patterns in sizes 18m-8 yrs, with two view options. You get both a short-romper and a skort option. I’ve sewn up both, and my daughter and I love them!
They are a fairly easy sew, with no closures to worry about. The bodice comes together with tied straps. If you use knits for the romper and the binding, like I did, you don’t even have to untie the straps to get the romper off. Easy to sew, easy to wear. What’s not to love?!
For my daughter’s Unicorn Garden Romper (fabric from myfabricdesigns.com), I made a couple of easy modifications to the pattern, to make the romper a little more feminine and a bit different. I omitted the binding on the shorts and added some ruching the leg outseams.
A simple change, but a really fun effect.
To do your own ruched Retro Romper, cut the shorts front and back pieces to pattern except for at the rounded corner of the pattern pieces. Where the corner of the pattern rounds, lengthen the piece straight down an extra inch and a half, square off the corner, and then taper the bottom edge so that it meets back up with the original pattern at the leg inseam. Remember to do this with both the front and back pieces.
Take some of the binding you aren’t using on the legs, press in half along the length.
Pin along the outseam edge of the shorts front pieces. You want the raw edges of the folded binding to be about 1/8” in from the raw edge of the outseams. Baste in place.
Sew the short fronts to the short backs with a 1/4” seam allowance, catching the binding into the seam along the outseams, creating casings on either side of the shorts.
Thread 1/4” elastic through the casings. Leave about 2 –3 inches of elastic hanging out on top and bottom.
Sew the shorts to the bodice, as in the pattern instructions. Be sure to catch the top overhanging elastic in the waist seam. This will secure the elastic in the casing at the top. Trim the excess elastic from the top. You should still have the excess elastic sticking out at the bottom of the casing.
Pull the elastic at the bottom of the shorts to the desired ruching. Make sure to pull the short legs to the same length on each side. Tack in place with a few stitches.
Finally, finish the hems of the shorts as the pattern says to finish the shorts for the skort shorts (turned hems).
And that’s it! Retro Romper with ruched legs! Hooray!
Pick up the Retro Romper from Blank Slate Patterns HERE
And check out the on-pattern Retro Romper Skort I made my daughter over on my blog HERE.
Thanks for having me, Melissa. And thanks for the awesome Retro Romper pattern!
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