I Craft Out of Necessity

My husband rides his bicycle into work each morning.  Wait, let me go back and reword that.  My husband USED to ride his bicycle into work each morning.  He USED to park in a free parking lot about a mile from his downtown office building.  He USED to ride a paved trail that lead him right to his workplace.  He USED to save our family $80 a month by doing this.  Enter: Winter Weather and Spring (and Summer) rains.  Now, he’s not so much riding his bicycle as he is taking it in the back of his truck every morning and parking in the garage by his office building. 

Now that summer is here, he’s trying to get himself back into the habit of riding in again.  Though I love that riding in to work saves us money, I don’t so much love the grease-stained pant legs that have become a part of every pair of pants the man owns.  I should have come up with this craft last year.

I decided it was time to make him some pant cuffs to wrap around his pant legs that will keep them from flapping into the bike chain.  I looked through my stash of fabric, found the ‘manliest’ color I could find, and bought some Velcro.  Except for the one Velcro tab I had to remove after stitching on the wrong side of the cuff, it was a very easy and quick project.  If I can do it, anyone can!

Here’s the stuff I used.  Light blue isn’t all that manly perhaps, but it does match all his blue shirts he wears to the office. 

Cut two strips of fabric oh, about 4 inches wide. I didn’t really measure much of anything, but I did have him wrap my fabric around his leg initially so knew at least how long it had to be.  I think it was around 12.5 inches or so that he needed around his leg, so I cut them about 16 inches long.  You can never go back if it’s too short!

Iron and sew them into two strips that look like this.  No biggie.  I did two rows of straight stitches to make them more secure.

Then, sew Velcro along the ends.  But not like this picture shows.  Put the Velcro tabs on opposite sides! Can you believe this is the second one I did?  I did the first one perfectly, then I got careless.  I had to rip out the stitches from the second cuff I did.  Ripping stitches is not fun.  Don’t be like me.

WHALAA!  A bike-pant-leg-cuff thingy! 

Now, if you REALLY want to be like me, have the wearer try it on and realize you made it WAY too long.  Then go back and cut out the middle and sew the two pieces back together for a shorter cuff.   

I made two, but Rick tells me he only needs one.  That’s fine.  Now I have an extra in case he forgets or looses the first.  I hope this helps with the stains.  Though, I’m not sure I’ll see the benefits until we buy new pants.