Short shorts!

Simplicity 2423 has got to be one of the first patterns I ever bought and I've definitely had my money's worth from it. From it I've made pj bottoms for my husband, brother and sister-in-law, as well as some lazy shorts for my husband. I have used it to make myself a pair of pj trousers before, but unfortunately these turned out Massively high waisted (I keep meaning to alter these, but there's always so many shiny new things to make).

Back shot with dodgy lighting

Whilst cutting out fabric for a Sorbetto recently I realised I would have about half a metre left over so was trying to work out what I could make with it. The fabric is a beautiful, floaty cotton voile that I got from The Village Haberdashery during their 20% off sale in June. Though it's probably an unwise fabric choice, I decided to use the remnants to make some little sleeping shorts. 

I had to do some serious pattern gymnastics to cut these out. I took about 3 inches off the top (which needed doing anyway to make them a little less Simon Cowell) and then cut the reverse of the waistband from a strip of leftover Swiss dot that I had. I think I messed up the maths when working out how big to cut it though cos my waistband has ended up pretty narrow!

I think I've missed an opportunity here to use some exciting fabric inside..

I also, obviously, took a very large amount of the leg length. There was no logic involved in this, the length was chosen by the fabric. To try to preserve some length I hemmed the bottom edge using some self binding. I cut this on the straight grain - again, fabric limitations - but I don't think this matters as I was binding a straight edge.

As I started making them I realised that as the fabric is so sheer it would probably benefit from a little support, for both decency and durability. I underlined the shorts in some silky, floaty white fabric I found in my stash a little while ago. I've no idea what it is or where it came from, but there's quite a lot of it and someone has written large numbers in random places on it. My guess is that it could be viscose as it's got a lovely drape. 

Nice, clean insides

I've recently fallen in love with French seams, so I finished the insides with these. I also top stitched the crotch seam for extra strength. When I first made these for my husband I wasn't quite as good at making the insides neat, so didn't use a strong seam finish and I definitely didn't top stitch. As he wears his trousers quite low this meant he ripped the seam fairly early on and I had to do a botched repair job. So I was pretty keen not to make the same mistake twice! I'm worried that the delicate nature of the fabric may mean they don't last as long, but time will tell.

Iron burn :(

I had a minor incident with the iron fairly near the end of construction which was pretty annoying, but thankfully the worst of it ended up hidden under the waistband.

The fit of them is a litttllle bit tight across the bum, which my husband kindly pointed out for me ("why is that side seam wonky??". Thanks, Jon..), but I'm hoping they might ease up a little with wear. I think it might be an idea to do a Full Bum Adjustment (is that a thing?!) for future pairs, as the rest of the fit is fine. I'm thinking a pair of these in a sturdy knit fabric would be nice for both sleeping and gym, so maybe that's what I'll aim for next.

I've also got fabric cut out to make a coordinating sleepy top (out of this beautiful fabric) which I'm going to bind with scraps from these shorts. Maybe one day I'll post a picture of the complete outfit!

Short, shorts!