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 Trousers

I showed you my Thurlow Shorts the other week and at the time promised to show you the trousers that I made from the pattern.

The trousers I made are out of this lovely black and grey weave fabric, that appears grey unless you look closely. The fabric (also from the fabric store) is a bit thinner than the stuff I used for the shorts, and has a slight amount of stretch. I forget what the fibre content was.

Although I still absolutely love the pattern, I definitely love the shorts waaaaay more than these trousers for two main reasons. Firstly, I'm not that fond of trousers these days, so they've got an uphill battle from the start. Secondly, because of the slight stretch in the fabric these trousers have ended up slightly bigger than the shorts, making them borderline too big.

They are, however, a huge success over the last pair of trousers that I made - for starters I didn't royally mess up the zip, and secondly they aren't super shiney.

Having said all that, I'm not sure how much wear they'll get, so if anybody local is slightly larger than me and wants to try them and see if they fit, I'd be happy to donate them to them. Let me know!

I do like the fabric though, and have enough left to make another pair of shorts, which I think I'll make in the size smaller to try and compensate for the fabric stretch.

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!