Shorts – Hopefully Creative

Ginkgo Jumpsuit

Short little ginkgo leaf jumpsuit

The Christmas gift from the office is always a gift card to spend at a local bookshop. This shop also sells sewing magazines, so I regularly check out the selection. The Burda Style 07/2024 version had some interesting patterns so it came home with me. I saw model 124 – Jumpsuit in it (also available online) and thought it looked very cute. So I searched through my stash and found this lovely ginkgo leaf fabric that has a bit of stretch. Then I dove in the deep end without making a mockup.

Short jumpsuit out of fabric with ginkgo leaves on a black background, side view

Short jumpsuit out of fabric with ginkgo leaves on a black background, back view

There were some small changes, I added belt loops, lengthened the pockets and added an extra security hook and eye at the top of the zipper. The pattern calls for buckles with a pin, but I didn’t understand how that would help, so I removed the pin. The straps are supposed to be scrunched through the buckles anyway, so where would you even make a hole for the pin? The instructions also seemed to miss a few little steps, but it worked out in the end.

Shoulder strap detail of short jumpsuit out of fabric with ginkgo leaves on a black background

Zipper detail of short jumpsuit out of fabric with ginkgo leaves on a black background

If I were to make it again, I would shorten the body length a smidge, because it’s a little low (short people problems), and I’d place the straps further inwards. Apart from that, I think it’s super cute even if I don’t know how much wear I will get out of it. Summer is fickle at best in the Netherlands and even more so this year.

Yellow Sparks

Ready to sweat in these banana shorts!

I’ve been trying to do bursts of short, 10 minute exercise every morning for a while now. I used to do it upstairs, but recently started watching tv in the living room at the same time. That meant that I wanted more shorts in case people would look in. YouTube was kind enough to show me an ad for exercise shorts that looked super fun, and I decided to look for a similar pattern. The Greenstyle Spark Tights seemed to be pretty close. After purchasing, printing and taping together, into the hoard I went. I returned with some yellow stretch fabric that would also make this suitable for roller derby as the team colours are yellow and black.

The pattern includes pockets, always essential if you ask me, a seamless front, three different length options for the legs and multiple options for the waistband. These yellow sparks were made in bicycle length. Cutting was pretty easy and fairly economical, you don’t need a lot of fabric for these tights. I sewed them together on my treadle with a slight zigzag stitch and did the hemming with a twin needle. I don’t have yellow serger thread and this seemed to work just fine when you stretch the fabric enough while sewing.

The pattern requires fabric with a lot of stretch (75% horizontal and 50% vertical), which makes it possible to skip elastics. I chose to make the high rise waistband (not the super contoured option) and removed about a cm from the top edge because it wanted to bunch when it was that little bit higher. The waistband is the same fabric as the rest of the shorts but they stay up really well. I’ve been wearing these every morning for the last week or so and I’m enjoying them a lot. Since they were so quick, I immediately cut out a second pair but this time with built in skirt. That’ll be up soon too.

Replacement Red Dungarees

Sometimes letting go of something old is only possible when you already have the perfect replacement. Hence these improved dungarees!

I absolutely loved these red dungarees that I made in 2014. Sadly, they haven’t seen a ton of wair, mainly because the fit was just that little bit off. However, because I was so fond of them, I decided that I NEEDED another pair (or a replacement pair, really). Off to the second-hand shop I went, where I managed to find a piece of red fabric by pure coincidence. I’m not sure how or why, but it worked out perfectly!

This time around, I chose a different pattern, now from a Knipmode magazine (Knipmode 7/2009 pattern 113, shorts). The original was shorts with turned hems, so I added the bib-front and the straps to make them similar to the original red item. Next to that, I made sure to create a space for buttons to close the sides. The zipper on the original just wasn’t very nice. I also changed the front pocket a little – I had some scraps leftover so I pieced the pocket together. I think it looks nice and more fun.

Once I had the pants nearly all the way finished, I needed to decide on some buttons for the sides. In the end, I chickened out and chose to go with my all-time favourite, black snaps. Easy, breezy, beautiful snaps. For the straps, I bought some black clip on things, I wanted them to be black and these were the ones I found. Then I needed to attach those things and didn’t really know how. So back to the trusty favourite I went, snap-time!

I have worn it during the hot summer and I enjoy it very much. So much, that I wanted to make another item to wear with it, but that’s for another day. By now, I’ve relegated the original to the ‘bag-that-needs-to-go-to-the-second-hand-shop’, and am happily trying to find occasions to wear these replacements. The one small issue I have with the pattern is that I think that the back pockets are a little too high. But if that’s the most pressing problem, then I can definitely live with that.

Pants: Red, Short, Striped

So, as it was extremely hot this summer, I wanted to have some more pairs of shorts. I’ve also been obsessing over a paper bag effect waist for a while now, so I figured I’d combine the two. Especially after starting my search on pinterest and finding some nice inspiration (here). I had a piece of fabric in the hoard that came from a colleague of mine. There wasn’t a lot, but it was red striped and the stripes were on grain, so I started creating my pattern and sewing up the project at the end of July.

I don’t exactly remember why, but I decided to eliminate the side seam. So I put the back & front of the red pants pattern onto paper and traced, also adding at least 5 cm? to the top to allow the creation of the paper bag waist. I also created some pockets that would be integrated belt loops. Then I stitched some thin white cotton to the top to allow for the creation of the elastic channel on the back and to finish the waist nicely. Some more sewing and belt loops later and I had a pair of shorts!

I’ve worn them a few times this summer, and eventually decided that they really needed back pockets too, so I cut out some and put them on last weekend, during a spree of small fixes, which also included adding elastic to the red pants waist to make them stay up slightly better.

They will probably not be pants I’ll wear very often, since the weather usually isn’t as scorching as it was. However, it’s still nice to have some variation to choose from. I think the finished result is quite fun, so yay for this project!

Striped Shorts

After sewing the Tantalus scarf, I started leafing through my pattern magazines and I spotted some shorts I thought looked cool. Burda 6/2009, shorts 120. I liked the idea of the vaguely paper bag looking waist and the ties on the side. So I copied the pattern onto pattern paper, made an adjustment in the width of the crotch (need to remember for next time to add even more width), since that tends to be a regularly required adjustment and gave up for the day.

I hadn’t figured out which fabric I wanted to use, but the next day it came to me. Why not use some striped black stuff I’d previously used for something – cannot remember what – and make them look vaguely formal. So off to work I went, cutting out all the bits and pieces. Then I tried to follow the (dreaded) Burda instructions… Well, until the zipper. The instructions were half a page full of text, no pictures whatsoever. I did not understand what in the world they meant. So after pondering for a little bit, I decided to ditch the instructions and use me some google to get the job done. This led me to a page of someone who also had had problems with the instructions and gave me the new name for all my boxes of fabric: the hoard. This is the quote from ‘Sewing for Life’:

“my hoard (I stopped calling it stash…it’s really a hoard of fabric I have. A stash is something to work from, constantly being used and renewed. A hoard is just a stockpile that keeps getting added on to and therefore keeps getting bigger and bigger!” (here)

I managed to get a good zipper in, when I figured out that the pattern also had a button. I was not interested enough in undoing all my hard work and just left the button off. The next day I finished hemming the end of the first and the second leg, and project was done!

There are in seam pockets, and those two little ties and I think it looks good. I’m hoping it will actually be nice weather again soon, because I cannot wait to try them out for real.

Sport Skort Evolution

In December I will be playing my first roller derby game. It is very exiting and very scary. We will all be wearing a yellow sport top with our name and number on it. However, for bottoms, we can figure it out ourselves. I wanted to have something different from just short leggings (or long leggings), so I set out to create a skirt with attached short leggings, now named the sport skort.

The first iteration used the leggings pattern from the striped leggings, taken in along the side seam and back seam significantly. With an added full circle skirt from some strange waffle-scuba type stuff. I had the waffle stuff on the outside. While testing it out, I determined that I liked the idea of the skirt, but since the fuzzy side was down, it kept sticking to the attached shorts. It was also very full which made it behave less than ideal. This is also why it ended up in the closet and is wrinkled in the pictures.

The second iteration took the same pattern, but I overlapped the side seams to each leg is now one piece. The skirt is a half circle from the same fabric as before, now added with the waffle side in and the fuzzy side out. The waistband is still from the leggings stuff, now with an added pocket for my mouth guard. This is most likely the shortest skirt I’ve ever worn outside of my house.

The only reason I dare to wear this it is because it has the attached leggings. This version fares much better and I’m actually thinking of making a second one, since this one is very comfortable. I declare this a success!

For the second version I cut the skirt with the same diameter, but being a half circle vs. a full circle, the waist takes up more of the diameter and the skirt becomes shorter. On the left the first version and on the right the second version.

Swimming Octopus

I bought some fabric that has an interesting feel and pattern last year. I didn’t get round to determining what I wanted to make from it, so it languished in the stash. It is covered in octopuses on a blue background and it feels almost waxy? The people who I bought it from told me it was for swimwear. I’m not sure whether that is true, but I decided to make some (swimming) shorts out of it.

The pattern again came from a Simplicity magazine, although I’m not sure which one. I french seamed the entire thing to prevent the raveling. Now, the placement of the octopuses is not ideal, with that mutated big on over my butt, but I’m not going to care about it, I think.

Here is it flat outside (top) and on the insides (bottom). The fabric is quite similar on inside and outside as you can see.

I haven’t worn it out yet, but I’m planning on doing it as soon as the next heatwave hits. Last week we had one, but I was too lazy (and too hot) to actually go outside to the beach. Who knows how it will hold up..

Stripes Everywhere

To combat underwear views in the last graduation dress, I made some shorts. I found this leggings pattern on the internet (Into the woods from Grosgrain Fab.com, here) and cut out the shorts from some striped stretch fabric I still had available. I wanted to have the shorts end on a blue stripe as that would match the dress better. However, when I put on the finished product, it was too long, and was clearly visible when wearing the skirt. Oh noes!

Front long Front short

So… I made another one that was shorter. Why not cut of some length of the first one? Well two reasons, 1. I didn’t want a green stripe at the bottom and 2. I needed some short leggings to wear under my butt-protector shorts during roller derby, and the first pair were just long enough to serve that purpose. I still managed to get the blue stripe at the bottom in the second version, so that was nice. You can see the difference in length between these two. There are a couple of extra stripes on the right one.

Back long Back short

I have no idea why the left one pulls more than the right one in the back, especially since they are the same pattern. I’ve still got to try the full length version at some point. Not in summer though. First I need to finish a shirt from the remainders of this fabric…

Wearable Tester Pants, take 2!

So… I just found out that I’d lost my Wearable Tester Pants blog post from February 22 2015 completely. I wanted to put the finished project up on my Finished Projects page, but the link was broken. I managed to find the text hiding in a revision of my Laundry Bag Post, so I copied that here now, since I still want to link back to this awesome finished object! Now on to the original post..

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I’ve had this piece of pinstriped navy linen-type fabric in my stash for a while now. I’ve always wanted to make semi-formal pants from them. But I’ve never really found a pattern that I had enough faith in to cut into my nice fabric. At some point (2 weeks ago) I decided it had to be done. I had found a pattern that I liked, that also came in a ‘shorts’ version. Since the crotch is usually the biggest problem area for me, I decided to try it out in the shorts version first, I have enough fabric to make a long version later.

I decided to cut it out single layer, in order to do some attempt at stripe matching. What I did not know at first was that this fabric is mighty shifty.. Those stripes have to be manipulated to be straight. This is a problem when attempting line up things. Second, the distance between the stripes seems to differ along the fabric.. So in the middle they may be closer together than at the sides. This makes pattern matching even more challenging. You can also hardly see the first cut piece, see example below.

In the end I did manage to cut all the pieces I needed. So I sewed it up, I did decide to put in a side zipper and not a center front zipper, mainly because I thought it would be easier. Tried it on and I was actually happy with the fit. The fabric flows so that might help too. After I’d sewn it up, I decided that I wouldn’t just dump it, but make it wearable so I serged the insides, as far as possible. And since the stripes are white I decided not to bother with changing the serger thread.

I now wear these once a week during my new activity. I’ve started the fresh meat course of roller derby at the local group. It currently still involves learning how (and how not) to fall over, go forwards and backwards and stop. If, after 12 weeks I manage to pass the exam, I might have to start doing scarier stuff, but lets not think about that. Roller skating is really very active, and having long pants is not nice when wearing knee pads, that’s why I’m using these shorts over my leggings for some coverage. It works and I like it.

I did stripe matching along the front seam and it worked! Sadly the side with the zipper rides up more than the other side, but as I’m only wearing them once a week, I do not really care. They also have belt loops and pockets!

So these were finished last Sunday, a minute before setting of for the first derby practice. They have since been in the wash and on the laundry rack, that’s why I forgot about them. Tomorrow you can enjoy my new laundry pin bag, made from Peruvian fabric!

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Ps. I managed to pass my derby exam yesterday! I’m now a Lamb Chop and not Fresh Meat anymore!

Moving Fabric

I’ve wanted to make something the Dutch call a ‘tuinbroek’ for a long time now. A tuinbroek, from the Dutch word for garden, is called dungarees in English. Pants with flaps at the front and back and straps over the shoulder.

For my plan to work I first needed to find a pants pattern that would fit, such that I could add the front, back and straps. I eventually settled on the pattern I used for my green and grey pants. I tried to remove the pleats in the front because I didn’t like them for my dungarees and shortened it to knee level. Found my fabric, a bright red linen type stuffy that I’ve also made this bag from, and cut it out. That was 2 to 3 months ago. Guess what has been wadded up inside a bag for quite a while…

Now, it is presently extremely hot in the Netherlands, so hot that I needed something short to be able to survive the heat. So I continued on with my dungarees. Also because I felt a bit guilty that it had been left in the plastic bag for so long already. I first made the pants bit, where I found out that I hadn’t removed enough of the pleats so I still had to make some anyway, otherwise it would just fall straight off my bum.

You can see the pleat next to the zipper, it’s on an angle because I liked the look of that better. I also made belt loops in case I want to wear a sash or belt. This is the only side that opens, the other is completely closed. It opens by means of a zipper and two sets of hooks & eyes.

When I had finished it all, including the top pocket, back pockets, belt loops and serged all the insides, I had to decide on the length. It was really hot so I decided to chop it all off. It’s pants, so basically still having a bit of inseam would be decent enough. I was wondering if I wanted to have turn ups, so I made those first, the plan being to allow me to turn those turn ups in or out depending on my mood. I didn’t like them out so I decided to stitch them down. This made the inseam the perfect length of 11 cm.

All in all, I like them. I might possibly need a little bit more room in the butt area, but I’ll see if I can change that in the next iteration of this pattern. I really like this pattern so I’m guessing there might be more in the future. This is how they look on me, completely finished.

I have already started a new project involving some stuff that feels like a wet-suit. I just hope that project will not take as long as this did.

Tag: Shorts