As most people who read this blog know, my son, Adam, now 6, is Autistic. As is common with ASD, he also has some physical issues, including a fine motor delay.
This delay means he cannot button buttons or do hook and eye fastenings. He has just recently nailed snaps and zips but even those can be a struggle at times.
The other thing you may know is that Adam is tall for his age. Very tall. As in just over 48 inches tall. Yes. Four feet. At 6 years old. Never forget; I’m only 62 inches myself. So yes, he’s nearly to my shoulder.
In any case, this means that I could not find any school trousers without hooks and eyes for him this year. Luckily some of last years trousers were fine in length at the beginning of the school year. But, as he always seems to do, 4ish weeks into the school year he had a growth spurt and those trousers went from fine in length to borderline to nearly flood water length in the space of, I swear, a week. Or maybe even a day.
It’s been suggested I stop feeding him, but that seems a bit drastic to me. 😀
So I needed to solve the problem of how to get a hook and eye off and a snap on. I took a seam ripper to one of the pairs of trousers only to find that Marks & Spencer has some magic way of inserting the halves of a hook and eye through the fabric so I would have to cut the fabric to remove them. I made a face, sewed the seam back up on my machine and started thinking.
And this is what I came up with:
So, how did I do it? Let’s see!
First I gathered some stuff:
Then I cut the fabric to size. I realized long after I was done cutting that it would have been neater if I’d allowed a bigger seam but by the time I realized that they had all been cut out and zigzagged stitched and I didn’t have the time to start over. Note: Yes. I used Avengers. No, it’s not technically part of his uniform. But since no one would know but us? I thought it would please Adam. And it did. 😀
Snaps in position for hand sewing. Yes, one of them is backwards. Again.
Next I hand sewed the snaps to the fabric pieces. Top Tip: Check you have the snaps the right way around. Then check again. And then again. I had ripped them out more times than I care to admit.
And finally, I machine sewed the strips over the hooks and eyes.
And when a small but very tall boy tried them on? Perfection!
Excellent solution. Josh still has problems tying his shoes, which is why he has boots that zip up the side, makes it so much easier for all of us.
Adam has no idea how to tie shoes. I can’t imagine he’ll ever learn, nor need to!
Josh’s boots lace up the front, so I made him put them on so I could tie them so they were comfortable. Then I double knotted them and made sure they were very, very secure. Now all he has to do is put them on and zip them up. So many less arguments.
Fili cannot cope with buttons, zips, poppers or fasteners of any kind. Even velcro is hit and miss. I have tracksuit trousers for him to wear to school, as they are just pull up and down, no fasteners. Shoes with velcro, which fortunately the assistants will help him with. He cannot do up his coat, and am not wondering, having read your blog, whether to sew on a strip of velcro, down the front next to the popper buttons that go over the zip. He might not manage it all the time, but it would be better than nothing.
It’s a good idea, Millie.
Velcro is one of the greatest inventions known to mankind.
One thing is for sure. Adam is not going to get his trousers mixed up with anyone else’s when changing for PE.
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