Purl Soho City Gym Shorts
June is sure flying past at great speed. I haven't had much time to blog at all, but I have been sewing quite a lot. On the Stashbusting Sewalong 2016, the theme this month is Unselfish Sewing. When the theme was released, I wasn't sure if I had anything on the docket that would fit the bill, as I am a pretty selfish seamstress... but as if by power of suggestion, I suddenly got some semi-unselfish tasks - a few projects for my church and my first ever chance to be a pattern tester. Very exciting, but not blogable at the moment...
Yet, before this flurry of secret or unselfish activity, I did make a new pattern that was just for my own indulgence. The Purl Soho City Gym Shorts. Above is my third make of the pattern, after the fitting was adjusted.
I realized during Me Made May, that I didn't have any loungewear me-mades & I wanted to change that this summer. I also wanted to try my hand at pants and shorts... so this free pattern seemed like a simple and useful place to start.
I am totally in love with the pattern and the end result. It is a perfect stash-buster for interesting thrifted and left-over scraps. It combines colors and prints, which is one of my favorite things to do, and the finished shorts are really comfortable and flattering.
I had to tinker a little bit to perfect the fit because I was right at the edge between two sizes. First I went up to the higher size, and the result was too large. Here's a pretty quick and dirty muslin, but they are actually still really comfortable for being at home. I was so focused on pattern matching the stripes that I forgot to flip the pattern around, so it's the wrong side on half the shorts. Also bias binding and stretch fabric don't work together & it was too big, so I just trimmed the bias binding off and finished up for fit.
The second muslin, I did in a woven scrap of batik fabric that was part of a dashiki pattern - I got it at a thrift store. It was really fun to lay the pattern out to make use of the cool print. I made these a size down, where my hips were at the top of the size range and they were too snug, so I came up with a solution to add a center panel - used even more of the cool batik fabric and adjusted my fit so I could be more comfortable and get some good wear out of this cool fabric.
In the end, my fitting solution for the yellow floral ones was to use the larger size back piece and the smaller size front piece for a half size that gives my ample derriere a little extra breathing room. I had a little Goldilocks "just right" moment when I slipped the yellow ones on.
I'm looking forward to making a couple more with scraps of special fabric this summer. I already have a dot chambray pair cut and ready to go when I shift gears back to my regular fare of selfish sewing.
Yet, before this flurry of secret or unselfish activity, I did make a new pattern that was just for my own indulgence. The Purl Soho City Gym Shorts. Above is my third make of the pattern, after the fitting was adjusted.
I realized during Me Made May, that I didn't have any loungewear me-mades & I wanted to change that this summer. I also wanted to try my hand at pants and shorts... so this free pattern seemed like a simple and useful place to start.
I am totally in love with the pattern and the end result. It is a perfect stash-buster for interesting thrifted and left-over scraps. It combines colors and prints, which is one of my favorite things to do, and the finished shorts are really comfortable and flattering.
I had to tinker a little bit to perfect the fit because I was right at the edge between two sizes. First I went up to the higher size, and the result was too large. Here's a pretty quick and dirty muslin, but they are actually still really comfortable for being at home. I was so focused on pattern matching the stripes that I forgot to flip the pattern around, so it's the wrong side on half the shorts. Also bias binding and stretch fabric don't work together & it was too big, so I just trimmed the bias binding off and finished up for fit.
I'm looking forward to making a couple more with scraps of special fabric this summer. I already have a dot chambray pair cut and ready to go when I shift gears back to my regular fare of selfish sewing.
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