Short Shorts of the Floral Variety

You may or may not know that England is currently Quite Warm. So warm that I am running out of things to wear. Normally my melded autumn/winter/spring wardrobe can make it through summer with the addition of a pair of flip-flops and a single sundress for the one day it doesn’t rain. But now, after three or four days over 20C, the whole ‘being able to feel my toes all day long’ thing is going to my head and I’m finding myself thinking about developing A Summer Wardrobe.

Hardly surprising with this a short trot from the door.

Last week I gained the sudden urge to make a pair of shorts. I considered buying some, but the thought of trawling through every shop in town to find an appropriate pair (in the sort of temperatures that are making me want the shorts) left me cold. Or hot. Well, grumpy. So, I thought, I should make some, because toiling over a hot sewing machine is so much more sensible.

So on Friday evening, on a bit of a whim, I searched out a pattern. Burda 105, Retro Shorts. I downloaded the pdf and sweet-talked the printer into behaving, then arranged the pattern during a highly entertaining thunderstorm.

This is the first full-size pattern I’ve made from a downloaded pattern; I’ve always been very much a big-four-tissue-paper-pattern-with-diagrams girl. I did make a cute little handbag from a downloaded pattern, but I was nervous of going full-size.

I considered doing what the pattern suggested and tracing it out onto tracing paper. But I was feeling hot and lazy so I just cut out the printed pieces, traced around them in tailor’s chalk, then drew in the seam allowances the same way. Probably not the most precise measure, but I am nothing if not slapdash when it comes to sewing.

The fabric is left over from a dress I made a while back. I never posted about it because it wasn’t very good, haha. The fabric is cotton (probably) in an interestingly garish batik-style design, a Fancy Silk Store special. I had about 80cm left of it, which was just scraping the minimum pattern requirements. I confess that I did do some flipping of pattern pieces just to make sure I could get all the pieces cut.

It was a good weekend project, though I did come very close to burning out on the last stretch. I was tired, I wanted a drink, and the pattern instructions were so very condensed and confusing that I nearly gave up. But the Internet persuaded me to continue (Instagram ’loves’ are a great motivator).

They are tiny. They are very low-slung, so there’s no buttcheek or pocket bottoms on display (I really, really despise that look), and I am also saved the horror of high-waisted shorts which is all that was available last time I bought shorts (in 1998?). But they are still very short. However: I live at the seaside, and if there is any place that I should be able to wear very short shorts, it is at the god-damned seaside. Right?

I would take a picture of them on to show the fit, but I’ve recently had a run-in with a creeper on Flickr so I’m not going to. Perhaps you’ll see them in passing if I do ever dare to wear them outside the house. :D

Pattern: Burda 105 Retro Shorts Fabric: cotton floral batik print