A hot tip for that coordinated mother-toddler look

If you are at a certain age and stage I have a little project here to achieve that coordinated look for mother and toddler. Instructions for making your own trouser and top combo.

What you will need:
- a toddler, a sewing machine, elastic, perseverence against the odds and an easy-going attitude to what you thought of as "style" before you read this.

To do:
1. Trawl your local charity shops for a jumper that is not quite 'you' but that has a great colour and fabric - today I found a brown and blue striped merino wool top from Gap for £5
2. Purchase, take home and cut off the arms leaving the seam on the arm side and raw edge to the body
3. If you think the fabric is going to fray, take the sawn-off body and do a zig-zag stitch on the raw armholes. There you go, that's your new top!
4. Take each arm and hack out a quarter circle from the wider upper arm end. Make the resulting shape look like your toddler's trousers when they are lying there flat and folded in half down the middle. What used to be arms are now legs!
5. Take the legs and make a great effort to work out which sides you need to pin together in order to sew these into something resembling trousers. Tack the raw edges that you have pinned and attempt to put toddler in to check for adjustments. Measure the length of elastic you will need for the waist in order to make these bags stay on.
6. Take them off again and sew seams together
7. Make a hem for the top by double-folding the edge towards the inside and sew into place leaving a slot for the elastic.
8. Pin a safety pin onto the elastic to hold onto whilst threading this through.
9. Sew together and neaten up as best you can!

OK, this is somewhat of a hoax because once I got home and tried the stripey jumper on I quite liked it and am still wearing it now, intact. But if anyone gets there first be sure to let me know! If I ever do it I promise I will put post photos here.

The inspiration for this was the time I used my cashmere polo neck to dress my own toddler (legs into the arms) after a complete soaking in the sea without a change of toddler clothes to hand. It looked so snug that I wondered why we did not do it more often although there was a lot of spare fabric around the waist.