I went through my stash of commercial patterns and found the template for some pants. I would recommend to any new sewer to buy a few patterns that include the most basic building blocks of clothing such as pants, sleeve, bodices etc. You can use those building blocks to create whatever you want.
I like to trace my pattern pieces onto tissue paper. Making clothing for a growing girl means that I can't cut out one specific size on my baby clothing patterns. Using tissue paper allows me to cut the tissue pattern piece to exactly the correct size, and it also allows me to draw and cut and make changes without ruining the original pattern. Just slip your pattern under the tissue paper and trace away.
On its most basic level a pattern piece for a pair of pants is a long rectangle with a J shape cut out at the top. The outer seam should be as long as you want your pants to be from ankle to hip PLUS extra length for hemming the bottom and double folding the top to create elastic casing. You can check the length of your inner seam by using a pair of pants that currently fits. If you are working with a stretch knit fabric the waistline of your pattern should be 1/4 of your waist PLUS extra for seam allowances. If you are working with a woven (non stretch) fabric you will want to measure at the widest part of your hip so that you can get the pants on and off and let elastic worry about making the waistline fit your waist. It is better to go too big than too small when cutting. The length of the vertical section of the crotch J is the height of the front and back of your pants. Using current terminology for jeans- this is the measurement that will determine if you have low rise, mid rise, or classic fit. I like to cut this with lots of extra height so that I can trim it down later. The horizontal(ish) part of your J is simply the space running from the front to the back. I like to work with 4 pieces of fabric when I make pants, although I have also seen pants patterns with two pieces. You could potentially cut the pattern with the outer seam line on the fold. This, of course, assumes that your outer seam is a straight line and that your crotch lines are the same for the front of the pants and the back of the pants. For more fitted pants you will find that you need larger pieces for the back than for the front with a different crotch curve to accommodate a derriere.
I didn't want this particular pair of pants to be very fitted- so I made things easier on myself and used one pattern piece for all four cuts of fabric, but I still like working with four rather than two.
So I cut out my tissue paper copy of my pattern and laid it out on my INSIDE OUT pillowcase so that the bottom hem would be at the opening of the case, then I traced it out using a colored pencil. You can buy fancy markers and pencils at the fabric store that will vanish after washing but I have found that a classic colored pencil is easy to see and won't bleed like a marker might. Since all of these marks will end up on the inside of the pants I personally don't care.
When you cut this out you will be cutting through two layers of fabric which are naturally created by the pillowcase, but it's important to make sure both the top of the pillowcase and the bottom are properly lined up. You can see to the left that the scalloped pillowcase opening is wrinkled and uneven. I have messed up far too many sewing projects by rushing ahead and not paying attention to details. It's worth the time to line everything up carefully and use your hand to push folds and wrinkles out of the fabric.
When looking at tutorials and youtube videos on sewing it always seems like the fabric just magically does what you want it to do. This isn't true for me. Getting the fabric lined up perfectly took several minutes because when I made one adjustment it would mess up another adjustment. Be patient and make small changes. The end result is a perfectly lined up hem.I cut through both layers of fabric and had my first two pieces- DON'T separate the two layers of fabric. You are going to be sewing them together at the crotch line and they are currently perfectly and beautifully lined up.
Since I decided to use one pattern piece for all four cuts of fabric I could simply flip my cut pieces over and trace them out to make my next cut. If, however, you are using different pattern pieces for the front and back of the pants you will need to trace that second shape onto tissue paper and trace that out instead. In the end you will have four pieces of fabric- but remember not to pull anything apart yet.
The very next step is to sew along your crotch J shape for both the front and the back of the pants. I am very bad with seam allowances and this always makes life more difficult in the end- which you will see later in this tutorial. You can see in the photo that I only have a little bit of fabric sticking out to the right past the presser foot. To make your life easier- move that fabric over- just realize that the bigger your seam allowances are the bigger your pattern pieces need to be to accommodate them. 
In the end you will have something that looks like this. As you can see I have some puckering along my stitch line and that is because I am still learning how to guide the fabric through the machine gently, but luckily I am making pants for a toddler and no one will see or care about puckered seams. The next trick is finishing the seam properly. I wanted very badly to do this properly and I tried following suggestions found in tutorials on Pinterest. I believe this failed because of my skimpy seam allowances, but I will show the process nonetheless.
First I trimmed down ONE side of the seam allowance.
Then I folded the other side of the seam allowance over twice- so that the raw edge would be inside the fold- and I pinned it.
I selected an overcasting stitch on my machine. I could be wrong but I believe that the symbol is the same on all machines. If you don't see a stitch that looks like this on your machine you can look at your manual and it will probably (hopefully) tell you which stitch is an overcast stitch. In a worst case scenario you could also use a zigzag stitch set with a short stitch length.
And now the tricky part. I had to keep that double folded edge going while sewing. This wasn't too difficult for the straight part of the J curve. I used the tips of two pins to help manipulate the fabric when I felt like my fingers were too fat to do the job.
And in the end my seam looked like this:
It was a headache getting around that curve. I can't stand little detail work (which is a trait that probably does not go well with sewing) and I found the process of double folding a tiny strip of fabric to be maddening. I think it would have been easier with a bigger seam allowance but for the second J seam I needed to sew I decided to you my improvised method which I will demonstrate next.
After sewing the J crotch line with a straight stitch I cut my seam allowance close to the stitch line. I used the same overcast stitch, but I didn't worry about folding the raw edge into a fold. I used my straight stitch line as a guide and overcasted the raw edge.
Then I did another pass starting at the opposite end. My method is a huge waste of thread because you are triple stitching. I don't even know if my method will work once the pants have been worn and washed a few times. But I love how direct and quick this method is. I was able to sew at top speed and just follow my original stitch lines.
You can see the finished product of my method isn't the prettiest thing. There are some threads sticking out and the stitch work isn't exactly pretty- but I believe it will hold.
You should now have two main things to work with- the front of your pants and the back of your pants. Open them up so that your crotch J seam is in the middle and place front to back with RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER. Right sides together basically means that the pretty side where you can't see any of the threads from the seams you just made are on the inside of your work and the 'ugly' side is to the outside. Sew the outer seams first. For pillowcase pants it's important to begin at the fancy hem that is created by your pillowcase opening because you want the trim to be lined up correctly. In the picture you can see that I'm holding the fabric together so that the trim line will match up from front to back. If you get to the top end of the pants and one side is a little longer than the other don't worry. You are going to be turning over the top edge to make elastic casing anyway so it doesn't need to be perfect. 
The next step is to sew the inner seam. Once again you want to line up the trim 'hem' of the bottom of the pants for each leg. The inner seam is sewn in one long stitch line so it doesn't matter which end you start on. I am usually not a huge fan of pinning fabric when I can line things up with my fingers, but I do recommend pinning in this case. Pin each trim line first and then smooth out the edges of your fabric so that they are lined up with each other working from the ends of the pants in towards the crotch J seam. You can see me lining up the trim in this picture to the left. You may end up with extra fabric in the very middle. This can happen easily if your seam allowances on your center crotch seam were a little different. Don't panic. Working with each pant leg just move the extra fabric toward that center crotch seam and pin right next to it on each side. One side of your fabric will be perfectly flat and the other side will now have a little curve of fabric at the seam. find the middle of that bubble and press it down flat to the seam on the other side of your pants then pin down each side of that basically into a nice pleat and then sew over that. I'm showing the process with two different colored felt papers here because it's easier to see than with monochromatic fabric. Pretend that the black line is your seam.
Once you have sewn your outer and inner seams you can finish off those seam allowances in whatever method you choose (either my made up triple stitch method or the real fold over method or some other method you have found and enjoy). Because these are pillowcase pants and I've used the trim on the pillowcase to create the bottom of my pants I don't have to worry about hemming them. I do still need to finish off the waist line though.
This is a good opportunity to grab Jill and try the pants on her. I can make sure that I finish the waistline at an appropriate height by simply marking a line at her waist as she wears the pants. I know that this isn't the proper method, but to create the elastic casing I just grab the pants with my fingers at the outer seams and fold over twice then press with an iron. You can use a ruler to make sure that your fold is a consistent width but I think this is faster and easier and for me the results are the same. You can see that the raw edge is folded away into the waist band so that it will not fray and cause issues. 
I have pinned the fold over with a pink pin just to the left of my back center crotch seam. Pink is my closest approximation in pin colors to red- which means stop. I'm going to want to leave a nice hole in the fold over so that I can thread my elastic through. I will start sewing just to the right of the center back crotch seam. I have pinned my fold at all of the other seams with green pins that let me know to keep going until I get all the way back around to pink. The pins just help to make sure that my folds stay consistent. 
So here I have stitched all the way around my pants creating a beautiful casing for the elastic. . . or have I? Apparently not! I was so focused on my fold over and my pins and everything else that I failed to notice my bobbin has run out of thread. It's an easy fix though. I just cut down my top thread (which had grown long in the process of sewing with no bobbin), put in a new bobbin and started back where I ran out. Finishing off the pants is now a simple task. I measured Jill's waist and added an inch to cut a piece of elastic- I used 1/4 inch. I used two safety pins to work the elastic through- one pin for each end of elastic. The first end was secured in place by pinning it to the fabric on the outside of my casing. The other end was pinned to nothing. I just put a safety pin on there because it is long and stiff so I can push it through the casing and work it all the way around the pants and back to my opening. The first safety pin keeps the end from being pulled through. Just sew the two ends of elastic together (this is why I gave my measurement an extra inch) and then try them on your toddler. I ALWAYS check the elastic on Jill before sewing my casing the rest of the way closed. In this case I had to cut the elastic shorter and resew it together to make it fit properly.
They have lots of room for bending and stretching and general playing; they are super light weight but they keep her legs protected; and most importantly the trim at the bottom makes them very sweet and girly. I have gotten many compliments on all of Jill's pillowcase pants, particularly the bell bottom blue pants that are pictured at the top of this entry. I need to find some more pillow shams or ruffle edged pillowcases to make more of those.
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