Thurlow Shorts

As you may have now seen, the newest pattern released from Sewaholic Patterns is for the Thurlow Trousers/Shorts. I was very excited to be a pattern tester for this pattern, and am even more excited that I can now finally share what I made!

For the actual pattern testing I made this pair of shorts, but since then I have also made a pair of trousers which I will also hopefully share shortly.

My shorts are made from some brown wool suiting that I bought at The Fabric Store, and are my new favourite winter wardrobe item!

 

Now, I'm sure you're probably thinking something along the lines of "What on earth are you on about Rachel, shorts a winter staple? That doesn't make sense?!" but please hear me out... Firstly this takes me back to my long held belief that skirts are better than trousers in winter. Think about it - it's cold and wet and chances are you end up with cold and wet ankles because your trousers got wet when you were walking around outside. Whereas, skirts and tights are comparably warm BUT you don't get wet ankles... see where I'm going here?

Now, my primary mode of transport is my bike. Bike riding is great, it's cheap, its speedy, and it's good exercise. However, trousers are a pain to wear cycling as they get caught in the chain unless you put a strap around them or fold them up. Skirts don't have that downfall, but you do have to keep an eye on what's going on with them because sometimes they get caught by the wind...

Now, bring in shorts, which if worn with tights as shown in these photos are just as warm as the other options, and have neither of the downfalls - no cold wet ankles when it's cold and wet, and they aren't going to get caught by the wind when you're riding - win win!



Ok, I think that's enough waxing lyrical about the benefits of shorts, now I'd like to move on to waxing lyrical about these shorts in particular, or more specifically the pattern they were made from.

The Thurlow pattern is AMAZING. I made a grand total of one alteration to this pattern to make these shorts - I liked the length of the uncuffed pattern but wanted the cuffs so I lengthened them by 6cm. That's it, no other alterations. I made a straight up size 10 and they are hands down the most comfortable pair of shorts/trousers in my wardrobe right now.

I was a bit nervous about sewing up the pattern as it had two things that I have limited or no experience with; fly zips and welt pockets. I've done one fly zip before and it was a bit of a disaster - I did stitching lines in the wrong places and it just looks amateur. My fly on these is (if I do say so myself) perfect, I couldn't be happier with it, and I owe it all to Tasia's very clear instructions.

I also did my very first welt pockets, and again, with Tasia's instructions they look great! However, they are hand stitched together at the moment because I (stupidly) made the pocket bags out of black fabric and the pockets gape a tiny bit and it's really obvious because of the different colours. I'm planning on getting some buttons and adding little button loops to hold the pockets closed. But that's due to my stupidity, not an error in the pattern.

So yeah, incase you hadn't already guessed, I highly recommend this pattern, it really is fantastic!