Any tips on how to retrieve elastic from waistbands?

[cupcakes]

You know the ones - trousers with an adjustable waist so that the elastic fixes onto buttons inside the waistband. I have several pairs of ds and dd's which they can't wear as the elastic has come undone and got lost halfway round the inside of the waistband.
Any idea on how I can pull elastic out again?

knitting needle?

Dexterity, patience and safty pins.

You have to sort of scrunch up the waistband into a bunch and wriggle the elastic through the fabric. Occasionally use a safty pin to stop it working its way back to prevent swearing overload.

make a hole where you can feel the end of the elastic and attach a safety pin to it and work it round to the front again

It's a pain in the backside, isn't it. One of the pairs is a rather heavy denim so quite inflexible.

should I unpick the waist just under where the end is or make a hole throught the fabric?

ooooh I had to do this a couple of weeks ago! I used the safety pin method.