How to Make Regular Girl Jeans into Slim Jeans, A Tutorial

This is my first tutorial I have written, and may be only one ever....

If your kids are anything like mine, it is hard to find clothes that are skinny enough to fit them at the waist. Many jeans have pull tabs now that make them fit, but once in a while you will come across jeans that don't.  This particular pair of capris is size slim, but they are still quite big at the waist and fall down.  This happens a lot with jeans, and also with those cute knit skirts you can find at places like the Children's Place, Crazy 8 or Gymboree.  By the time they fit at the waist, they are miniskirts.  Here is an easy solution, that only takes a couple of minutes.

 Take 1" thick elastic and using a zigzag stitch, zigzag one side of the elastic to the side of the back of the jeans.  When picking thread color, look for something that won't show up.  Also watch for belt loops on the back side, you don't want to be stitching through those. I did a couple of lines of zigzagging so that the elastic would be very secure.

 Pull the elastic tight and make sure that it is stretched some.  How much depends on how loose the pants are.  If they are only a little loose, just stretch a little.  These capris were significantly loose on Ellie, so I pulled it as tight as I could.

 Stitch the other side with it stretched. Again, I did a double stitch to make sure it stayed.

 When you are done, the elastic pulls the jeans tight in the back. If you don't like the loop it creates, you can sew one more line of zigzag down the middle of the loop, just watch for belt loops on the reverse side.

 Now they stay up on their own.

 They do make the jeans slightly frumpy on the back, but as she grows into the size, they will look less and less so.  If she ends up filling out the jeans before they grow too short, I can easily remove the elastic and they will fit great.

 They especially look good in the front.

Now Ellie has one more pair of long shorts to wear, and it only took me 5 minutes.