Phat pants

Phat pants are pants that have enormous legs (not to be confused with pants that are simply baggy). They can often be seen on ravers who prefer them because they're comfortable to dance in, have large pockets to hold a lot of stuff, and look really damn cool. Are often overpriced, but I guess that's the breaks when your pants require 40 yards of material per leg.

This is something that does not require a lot of time, money, or sewing skills, and is also a great way to recycle old pants. Here's all you need to know:

• Start with an old pair of pants. Really, just about any pair will do, if they're too small for you, all the better. Take a pair of nice strong scissors and slice them from the ankle to the waistband along the outside seam of each leg. If you wish to make the pants larger, cut through the waistband completely, otherwise, leave that part of the pants intact.
• Now you must obtain some fabric. Get creative with this step, find something really unique. The amount of fabric that you will need depends on the length of the pants that you are altering, so go and measure the length of the cut you just made. Add two inches to that, one inch extra for the top and bottom hems, and that will be the length of fabric that you need to buy.
• Now that you have your fabric at home, fold it in half length-wise. One end of this fabric will be at the waist of the pants, the opposite end will be at the foot. If you wish to add an inch or two to the waistband of the pants, measure it and trace it out with a pencil, pen, piece of chalk, colored pencil (any of these will work, provided they show up against the fabric that you are using). Otherwise, choose the center line of the folded fabric and use the ruler to trace a line from that point to each bottom corner of the fabric. Cut the fabric along these lines and you should be left with two identical triangles.
• The next step is pinning the fabric triangles to the sides of the pants. Line up the fabric with the cut edge of the pants, inside to inside and making sure that you made an allowance for the hems, then pin the pieces together using straight pins. Once you've done this, try on your prototype pants (carefully, to avoid sticking yourself!) to make sure that everything has gone as planned, and make adjustments as necessary.
• Create the four seams you have just pinned, and then pin and hem the top and bottom edges. You now have a pair of beautifully ghetto-fabulous homemade big pants.