Well hello! So work has been eating me alive recently, and although I have completed my Cordova jacket I have not photographed it, and I am now in the throes of Holiday Making, so I have here a most unseasonal garment to share. Because it’s almost Christmas, so clearly it’s time to blog about… shorts! Yes, this is a pair of shorts that I made, and wrote up, back in July, but never posted. So here they are (better late than never?) – let’s just pretend they’re for all those southern-hemisphere-sewists, and not just because an already-written post seemed like the only thing I could muster right now. Shall we?
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My shorts kick continues! After making the floral-back tank, I found I didn’t have any shorts to go with it, since there’s brown in the print and so far I’ve got gray and black shorts only. And because, for a while, it was actually behaving like summer around here, I wanted to wear it with shorts. So the brown stretch twill I grabbed at the Loft in May got bumped to the front of the line.
I was thinking I would just make regular Thurlows again, sans cuff, when a review on PR of a pair of shorts from my only issue of Burda caught my attention. See, without the review, I would never have noticed the cool pockets on these shorts. From the picture and line drawing, they look just like your run-of-the-mill plain shorts. But it turns out that the pocket wraps around the whole side of the leg. Burda really isn’t trying very hard to call out this design feature, so I’m glad someone else noticed and brought it to my attention.
But of course, now that I’ve got a shorts pattern that I know fits me pretty well, I didn’t want to just go mucking about with a whole new waistband and crotch curve. Time for a mashup! From the Burda pattern sheet I traced only the side panel and pocket pieces. I then laid out my Thurlow front and back pieces, overlapping them to account for the seam allowance, and laid the Burda side piece on top, centering it on the side seam. I marked where the new front and back seams would be in the middle of the Thurlow pieces, then traced them out on new paper. I compared my Thurlow front and back to the Burda pieces, and other than a drastically different crotch curve, they were roughly the same shape. I measured across the top of all three pieces (less seam allowance) to make sure the waistband would fit. I eliminated the back dart from the Thurlow and moved it to the back-side seam by shaving a bit off the edges at the top, tapering down. I ended up taking more off when I sewed it together, shaping the back-side seam more. The rest of the fitting I did with the back seam as usual. And it all went together pretty well.
I did have a slight bump when I was cutting. I laid out the pieces as usual, with the grainlines, only to realise after cutting out two pieces and the waistband that the fabric stretched the wrong way. I had never encountered this, so I didn’t think to check, but this stretch twill stretches with the grain (as in, with the selvege)! That kind of threw me for a loop. Luckily I had bought much more fabric than I needed for shorts, so even with two pieces cut I had just enough left to fold it the wrong way and fit all the pieces in. I didn’t have room to cut waistband linings, though, but I figured the interfacing would negate the wrong-way-stretch so I just used the ones I’d already cut. I guess now I’ll always check the direction of stretch before I cut!
This fabric may have been just a little too stretchy for this pattern, as I’m getting some gathers in the corners of the pockets, and some pulling around the waistband again. But they are very comfy to wear! After thinking further, I’ve decided that the 1/4 inch rise lengthening I’ve been doing isn’t doing me any favors in the front – the last two pairs have been too baggy across the stomach. Next pair I will keep the extra length in the back, eliminate it in front, and see what happens.
And here’s one more picture – a look at how the pockets work on the front (and oh yeah, I topstitched all the seams), but mostly to brag that I inexplicably had the. perfect. button. just sitting in my stash… but nary a matching zipper in sight. Le sigh.
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And now, hopefully, back to our regularly scheduled seasonally-appropriate sewing. I will photograph that jacket soon! I hope! And in my imaginary world of super fast sewing perfection, I will be making a pair of pants for the cold weather I will be facing when I travel to Nevada for Christmas, as well as several more bag-type items for gifts! In the next three afternoons! Yeah, let’s pretend that’s going to happen!
no time to sew 