Monday, June 6, 2011

I made shorts!

Yes, I did. And I'm very puffed up and proud of myself. Ever since I started making pants for Jack, theres been a little seed in my brain about shorts for myself. I have kind of a weird shape. I've always been thick wasted with skinny legs. Pants that fit my waist are saggy in the butt and pants that look great on my rear end wont button up. Its super annoying and something that's always had me interested in sewing for myself. Well with my new understanding of pant construction, I decided to draft a pattern and make a muslin today. It was so flipping easy I don't know what I was waiting for. I did mis-measure the waist at first pass. I tried them on the first time and couldn't pull them past mid thigh. But with a cheap, busy quilting cotton like this, it was an easy fix. I just added a couple of panels to the sides.

Its barely noticeable. The waist is elastic. This is not only very comfy and forgiving on my post partum body but also way less scary than a zipper. I just made shorts that I might actually wear, gimmie a break! The version I've had in my head is cuffed so I tried that out here. Figured I may as well nail down the details while I was messing around. It worked out really well. I just added 4 inches to the hem before cutting the fabric and hemmed the shorts with 3" pressed under. Then I just folded 2.5" back up and pressed again.

I really dig the little button tabby detail that seems to be everywhere right now, so I found some cute contrasty buttons and sewed these arrow bits. I'm super lazy so there's no button hole or anything. I just looped the arrow over the cuff and sewed the button on through all 3 layers. The entire project took 1 nap and one mum mum cracker (about 2 hours). That includes drafting the pattern, realizing I had messed up, unpicking 2 hems, and resewing up the sides. I am really excited to adjust the pattern and try it out on some better fabric. I have some red cotton that I can actually hear singing to me from the next room, ooo and some gray canvasey stuff. The possibilities are endless. I leave you for now with this snap of Jack. Lookit those eyes ladies! Ahhh my beautiful little boy. Its been a very good day.


Update: Squeee! These shorts have been featured on Sew Woodsy and I'm feeling all fuzzy about it. It's a fantastic blog, head on over and check it out!

3 comments:

  1. WOW! These are absolutely AMAZING! Your project will be featured on Sew Woodsy tomorrow. Please feel free to grab a featured button and display it proudly! Of course if you have any new craft projects you'd like to link up we'd love to see you back! ;)

    Katie from Sew Woodsy

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  2. OOO These are sooo cute!! Shorts! Shorts and pants scare me. haha


    Ali
    Foundintheali.blogspot.com

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  3. Such cute shorts! I LOVE the tabs along the side and the big cuffs! Maybe one day I'll be good enough to make my own shorts.. :)

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