· ·

DIY Super Hero Belts & Underpants

As much as I’d hoped the Dark Knight and Superman costumes would be finished before the first of October, I’ve had so much going on that it was impossible to make happen.  We are *so* close to the reveal posts – just hang in there with me for a few more days.  If you’re following along making your own Dark Knight or Superman costumes, I promise we’ll all be ready to go for Halloween 2012.

Today we’re working on Super Hero belts and underpants.  It’s true.  The best crime fighters wear their underwear on the outside of their pants.

To match my Dark Knight and Superman shirts I picked up a pair of black cotton pants and a royal blue pair of sweatpants.  I made the underpants for Superman and the belt loops for both hero costumes out of coordinating fleece material and the belts out of a pleathery-like yellow fabric I found on clearance at the fabric store.  Super easy.  Super cheap.

Supplies (for one complete pant project)

  • Long sweatpants or cotton pants that match the shirt of your super hero’s costume
  • Colored fleece that matches your super hero’s underpants
  • Colored fleece that matches your pants (if your super hero does not require different color underpants)
  • Pleather-like colored material that matches your super hero’s belt
  • Velcro
  • Color coordinating thread & sewing needle

Directions for Underpants & Belt Loops

If your super hero doesn’t wear underpants, jump ahead to step 7.

1.  Fold pants in half lengthwise, pulling out the crotch and smoothing the fabric out on top of a double layer of fleece.   Trace on either side of the pant as shown allowing room for a seam.

I started tracing the underpants onto the fleece at the bottom of the elastic waistband.  I guesstimated the angle of the legs of the underpants somewhere between 25-35 degrees.

2.  Once you’ve traced the pant sides make your underpants angle with a straight edge (make sure to include a small part of the leg of the pants in your underpants pattern).  Cut two of these patterns.

3.  Machine sew the inside seam of both the front and back of the underpants (angled seam from the waistband to the crotch for both patterns).

When seaming this inside seam, DO NOT continue by seaming the small part of the leg you traced. You’ll be seaming the front to the back of the underpants by that small seam in another step.

4.  Open the front and the back of the underpants and seam the left and right sides together.

Make sure the right side of the fleece is on the inside during this step. You want all seams to be inside when the underpants are turned right side out.

5.  Complete the crotch by seaming the small portion of the leg (you left un-seamed in step 3) together.

6.  Turn the underpants inside out and place over the pants.  Hand sew the top of the underpants to the bottom of the elastic waistband of the pants.  Hand sew the leg of the underpants to the leg of the pants.

Machine sewing the underpants to the pants would have caused the fleece to pucker. I do not have the most even stitch by hand, but fleece is a very forgiving fabric. You can hardly tell the finished product was done by hand at all.

7.  Cut six rectangular belt loops (the length of the belt loop should correspond to the width of your belt).  Belt loops at least 1″ wide will help keep your belt neatly in place.

8.  Pin belt loops at even intervals around the waistband of the pants.  Hand-stitch the top of the belt loop to the top of the waistband.  Hand-stitch the bottom where they fall on the pant or underpants.

Directions for Belt

1.  Measure your child’s waist.  Cut a length of fabric to match your child’s waist measurement (plus room to overlap velcro).  The width should be roughly twice the size of the width you want the finished belt to be.

2.  On the right side of the fabric machine sew the velcro as shown below.

It doesn’t matter what color velcro you use because you shouldn’t see it in the end :).

3.  Fold the fabric in half (right side of the fabric on the inside) and seam the cut edge.

Make sure the fabric you choose has traction on the wrong side or it won’t feed through your machine.

4.  Turn the belt inside out and sew each end.  My Superman belt was done at this point.

The fabric I used was very thick but it turned easily by pulling the fabric from the center out.

5.  To fancy up the Dark Knight belt I made a running stitch along the top and bottom of the belt in black thread.

6.  Pull the belt through the loops on the pant and voila!  Super Hero pant project complete.