My son has a cultural heritage festival at school this week, and has to dress in the traditional costume of some of his ancestors. The costumes only have to be partially accurate, not perfect replicas. But, I was able to track down an out-of-print copy of a Burda Kids pattern for lederhosen.
The pattern called for leather or imitation leather. I wasn’t willing to spend that much and I doubt my son would have enjoyed wearing it. With some modifications to the pattern, I figured I could make corduroy work. I ran into a couple other obstacles:
The pattern only went to a size 10, and my kiddo is closer to a 12. The finished size was just large enough, but would have left very little wearing ease. I glued the pattern pieces to card stock so that I could add just a bit extra to each (and add seam allowances where there were none).
My son has a severe dislike of metal. So, no zippers, buckles, or eyelets allowed. I used buttons in place of buckles, and lacing instead of a zipper. Eyelets were done using the buttonhole function on my sewing machine.
Wow! These look great! And so much work… adapting this pattern was a real labor of love.
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AIMR
(Linda -In the year 2025, I am happy to be alive! :us:)
4
Love the buttons and lacing…they look comfortable to wear, even if it is for a short time. How does your child feel about being able to wear something his ancestors probably wore? It has to be pretty cool to have a mom who can do this for him!
The color is a nice change and it goes well with the checks of both colors!
Well, this is absolutely adorable! All of your modifications are sensible and great-looking, too! I’m sure that lacing through button holes is actually even more traditional to boot!
Thanks! It wasn’t easy modifying it for fabric instead of leather.
It’s actually a very dark navy blue, so I had to brighten the photos so that you could see details… it’s so hard to get good photos of dark fabrics. The photo with the pocket lining shows the color of the corduroy better than the others.
