Hi, there! Kim here, again! Today, I’m excited to be sharing how I added snaps to my daughter’s romper! My daughter decided the other day that she wants some dungarees, BUT she does NOT want to get naked when she has to use the bathroom. So, she asked me if I can make her a pair of overalls with a snap crotch. I figured we’d give it a go, and I took some photos of it to show how I did it in case anyone else is curious.
My daughter is pretty finicky when it comes to clothes. She wanted snaps, but she didn’t want them to show in any way. She also decided on a pair of long pants for her overalls so this isn’t the most practical example of how to make a snap crotch since it will take forever to re-snap it, BUT she loves it and will actually wear it so I’ll take that as a win. It also gave me a chance to see if this is something that is do-able if I ever again have to make a snap crotch on pants.
The first thing I did was cut everything according to what size I needed. For us, that was a straight 12 because she wanted it a little bigger than she actually is. She is normally a 10/12 blend so the 12 gives her PLENTY of room to grow. I made the bodice exactly as drafted except for the loops. My daughter wanted overall buckles so we didn’t put anything on the bodice to start. 
Next, I sewed the two front pants pieces together at the crotch curve and repeated for the back pieces. I joined the front and back on the outside seam and left the inside open. I attached my bodice and pants pieces at this point, but you could do this at the end and all’s well.
I then hemmed the bottoms, and I used a little bigger hem allowance than the pattern called for. I folded under ¼” and then hemmed up 1”. Once that was done, I measured how long that entire inside seam would be, and for these pants, it was 51 ¼”. I then added ½” for seam allowance. 
I decided that my “snap strips” would be 1” wide so I cut my strips 1 ½” x 51 ¾”. In hindsight, I would have made them a little wider because they were a bit fiddly after I attached the snaps. I used the denim and a woven material for the strips because I was afraid the denim would be too thick if I doubled it. I also had to cut some extra of the red bandana fabric because it was only 42” wide. When I was done, I had 4 strips. I sewed two strips together on the short sides and one long side to make a giant 51 ¼” strip. Repeat for the other side. I flipped them right side out and topstitched the sewn edges because I felt that would keep the strips flat and neat.
I knew I was going to be folding one side under like a binding, so I placed that on the pants with the “right side facing”, if you have a right side and wrong side, lining up the raw edges. On my daughter’s overalls, one strip has the bandana as the right side because I sewed the denim with the wrong side facing out, and it was really rough looking…so we went with pretty. I also sewed the other strip to the opposite side, right sides facing. For me, because they were going to be different fabrics, I had to know ahead of time which was the piece that would be used like a binding, but if your strips are the same, it shouldn’t matter. I serged the edges, but this isn’t necessary. You could take pinking shears to them, and that would work just as well. The photo shows before I serged the edges. 
Here’s where it went a little insane. I realized after it was too late that I didn’t have any snap tape, and I didn’t have time to order any so we decided to do snaps. I spaced mine about 1 ½” apart and marked them along the entire side of one strip. I then matched up the strips and made sure the dots were in the same spot on both snap strips. I used an awl to poke holes where I wanted the snaps and started pressing away. 
There were A LOT of snaps…I attached the snaps so that the functional side faced the inside (toward the jeans). Then, I flipped the side that I was treating like binding so that it was on the inside of the jeans and sewed it down. For the opposite side, I flipped it outward and topstitched the seam toward the jeans to help it lie flat.
The last step was to attach the dungaree buckles and we were done! My daughter loves her romper, even if it might be more work to use the snaps than to just take the top down. I think that I’ll most likely do this for shorts, but we both realized that this might not be entirely practical for pants. She still loves it, though, and we can’t see the snaps when she’s wearing it so she is happy as a bug!
That’s the scoop on how we added snaps to the Be Outstanding Romper. (*This is an affiliate link, and I make a small profit from any sales through this link at no cost to you.)
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Thanks for joining in and reading along today! I can’t wait to see what you make!
Blessings and Happy Sewing,
Kim
