Fixin’ the Drawstring

I purchased a new swim outfit online for my oldest girl a couple weeks ago, and the cover-up shorts I ordered have a waistband made of ribbed fabric with no elastic and a cute but non-functional drawstring. (You can read why here.) This would be fine, but this particular waistband is too big to stay up around her waist, creating an unacceptable non-cover-up situation. I put the shorts on my sewing machine so I’d be sure to fix them ‘soon’. Sure enough, about thirty minutes before the birthday party she was to attend wearing a suit, I got to fixin’ ’em! 

I started by checking for an unobstructed path through the waistband. There were two: the faux drawstring stitched at the front and the label sewn in the back. I removed the drawstring and opened up 1/2″ on each side of the label (please don’t laugh at my trusty old seam ripper…she’s very self-conscious of her battle scars):

I didn’t have enough ribbon to go entirely around her waist, so I grabbed a bit of 1/4″ elastic and tacked my ribbon to each end:

To be sure it won’t come apart, I hit the ends of the ribbon and the elastic with a bit of Fray Check. The new drawstring looked like this when I was finished:

Using a small safety pin, I guided the drawstring through the waistband:

I re-stitched the back label to secure the drawstring, threw the finished shorts on the girl and we ran for the car!

The end.