2 Metre Challenge - Part 1 - Shorts

Back in September in the small amount of the pre-frocktails fabric shopping trip that I popped in on, myself, Kat, Amanda, Liz and Lizzy set ourselves a little challenge/project; we spotted some lovely gingham fabric in the Alannah Hill outlet store and each bought 2m of the fabric with the challenge of seeing what we each made from it.

Kat and Lizzy have already posted their gorgeous projects (click on their names to see, they're great!), but I don't believe the other two have yet (please correct me if I'm wrong ladies).

 

Anyway, it took me a little while to decide what to do with my gingham. I had a few ideas, but I decided to let them ruminate (aka procrastinated) for a while and eventually committed to a plan over my Christmas/New Year break. With some moral support from Mel I settled on a design... which I will share with you soon. The bonus of my chosen design is that it didn't need the full 2m, and I managed to get this pair of shorts out of the fabric too!

Particularly after seeing Kat's shorts I was really happy that I could get shorts too; it allowed me to get the shorts without straight copying her as I've come up with my own idea too.

The shorts are essentially identical to my Birthday Shorts, except that because the gingham doesn't have any stretch in it they are functionally a bit smaller. Because of this, despite the shorts being finished in early January, I am only able to share them now as I have solved the problem of the shorts being too small by becoming smaller myself. Now they fit perfectly!

 

The only changes I made to the shorts are adding slash pockets in the front and making the back patch pockets a little bit deeper so that my phone fits in better.

Stay tuned for my 'real' garment for this project soon; I just have some hand sewing left to go to finish!

Bouncing Birthday Shorts!

It seems to be a fairly common occurrence for sewists to make themselves a 'birthday dress', which I think is a really nice idea. Except, for what I had planned for my birthday this year a birthday dress just wasn't going to cut it.

You see, I had a Bouncy Castle at my birthday party. I've wanted to get bouncy castle since mid-2012, so have had a fairly long held plan to have one at my birthday this year, since I was reaching a year ending in zero so figured that was a good enough excuse.

So instead of a birthday dress I'd like to introduce you to my birthday shorts!

You probably recognise the fabric, as it's the same that I used for my Roisin Dress. I was careful with my cutting layout and cut the dress and shorts out at the same time and easily fit both onto the 2.5m I had of the fabric.

The pattern is the Ruby Pattern from Burdastyle, with some alterations. I left off the button placket pieces and just stitched up one side seam and put an invisible zip in the other. I included the fitting changes that I did in my last version of the shorts, and then some additional ones (that interestingly I had already identified in the post about my last ones); I made them narrower in the leg tapering them in slightly, also made them smaller by taking in the side seams, and took a little more out at the centre back. I also made these the finished length of the other ones, but without the cuff. I added the back pockets, but didn't bother with the pocket flap.

I've worn these shorts so much since I finished them, not just on my birthday, and they're a massive success! I've actually already almost made another pair in another fabric and have at least one more pair planned. 

Hooray for shorts!

Thurlow Shorts Revisited

I am pleased to inform you that I have managed to use one of the pieces of fabric that came home with me from London, a scrap of lovely suiting type fabric that I picked up in the swap. I don't know who donated it to the swap, but whoever you are - thank you! I love it!! (Please own up if it was you!)

 

As soon as I saw this fabric (which was a little less than a metre, plus a bit due to the cutting done by the previous owner) I knew that it just needed to become a pair of thurlow shorts. And I was incredibly happy when I managed to fit all the pattern pieces onto the fabric with very little difficulty:



I didn't make any further alterations to the pattern, as per the pair I made for the pattern testing these are a straight size 10, with a 6cm increase in length to make the cuffed version the same length as the uncuffed version. I had marked on how far in I'd taken the centre back seam last time, so I just cut that out ready to go as I knew the other pair are spot on in fit (which saved a little fabric). The only difference between this pair and my first pair is the addition of the back pocket facing that is in the final pattern but wasn't in the pattern testing version (the only tissue piece in the above picture!).

I managed to find some solid brown fabric in my stash to use for the pockets and facings that matches the dark brown fibres in the weave of the fabric, I had a button and slide in my stash to use, and cut down a larger zip to size, so that I could make the whole thing from the stash, which was good!



Another quick thing, the t-shirt that I'm wearing in these photos is one of the many t-shirts I've made and haven't blogged. This particular one is made from some absolutely lovely merino jersey that I got at The Fabric Store. I love my merino t-shirts so much, they're great in cold weather, great in warm weather, and they get less smelly. Win, win, win really.

(PS: Thanks to Mel for snapping these photos for me)

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!

Ruby Shorts

I started these shorts a loooong time ago, and finished the bulk of them not long after but then struggled to find some buttons that were within my budget (10 buttons on a pair of shorts starts to add up!!), but finally found some red ones in a shop on Sydney Road in Brunswick, and finished them off by adding the buttons shortly before Christmas.

The shorts are the "ruby" pattern from Burdastyle (which I had downloaded back when it was still free). As with all burdastyle patterns the instructions were a bit difficult to follow and I mostly ended up winging it (the advantages of having made a muslin).

I made a few alterations from my muslin - I cut the pattern according to my measurements and they came out MASSIVE! However on closer inspection I decided that it was actually just the back pattern piece that was too big, the front was ok, so I took about a 2 cm vertical fold out of the back pieces. I also changed the shape of the front crotch curve, and also took some fabric out of the front just below the waistband. They have turned out a bit big though (possibly partly due to the fabric choice), so next time I will take them in a bit more, and probably also narrow the leg slightly, as they're a little wider than I would normally prefer.



The fabric is a linen cotton blend that I got from the fabric store way back when I was buying the fabric for my Minoru. Because of that it creases quite badly (this much creasing is just from a trip to spotlight this morning before I took the photos). However they weren't supposed to be fancy shorts, but lounge around shorts so I don't mind too much.

Shorts time...

This evening I spent a few pleasant hours working on a pair of shorts (since the weather is starting to warm up now) and watching the west wing. A pretty enjoyable way to spend an evening if you ask me.