Wow, these are some great ideas! I really like the idea about pillaging old cloth from bed sheets, blankets and the like. Thrift shops rule!
Do any of you have a camera, scanners or digital camera? It would be great to share examples of the work.
I actual made a couple pairs of over the knee pirate breechs that tie around the waist. I made them out of an old IKEA canvas couch cover that was stained, ripped and needed to be retired. Since the fabric was a brightish cyan blue, I bleached the material a few times. After I had sewn everything together they were still on the bright blue side. So I boiled them and boiled them and boiled them in a combination of tea bags and brown clothes dye. Aside from setting the dye into the fabric, boiling them seemed to break down the fibers a bit so the material wasn’t so stiff.
The idea was to make them look as though they were made out of sail cloth. And I need to modify the design, the waist should ride up a bit higher and the legs flare out a bit.
I was thinking I would post a picture of them but, realized that I must have gotten rid of them, we moved across country about a year ago.
If anyone is interested, I’ll formalize the simple pattern and make it available on the web.