M6930: Fancy shorts!

I don’t really have any shorts.

Technically, I have three pairs of shorts I bought in my early twenties, which still–miraculously–button up, though two of them are just a bit snug; but all three are very short and very casual. I have a pair of peach shorts bought last summer at Joe Fresh, which taught me to never buy clothes without trying them on first even if it’s an $8 pair of shorts, because Joe Fresh excels at putting together very cute two-dimensional clothes that look good on hangers and have no space for a butt (or boobs). I have a pair of more professional shorts bought on sale three years ago that are just that little bit too tight to be wearable for eight hours seated at a computer.

In a summer version of the classic lament, I have a drawer full of shorts and no shorts to wear, at least not if I want to wear them to work.

So I decided this was the summer to sew some shorts, and I started with M6930, a simple pattern with darts and a back zipper (view A). I then immediately complicated it.

First was the back pockets–just the place for some colourful embroidery. There was a floral pattern in A Rainbow of Stitches that was just the size of the back pockets minus the seam allowances, so I traced it out (regular view and mirror view) onto freezer paper, backed the denim with cut-out stabilizer, and stitched it up with a bunch of fibres from DMC, Caron, Rainbow Gallery and a few mystery skeins–there’s cottons, silks, wools, and some kind of glittery synthetic on there, and I used stem stitches, split stitches, chain stitches, satin stitches, french knots, fly stitches, leaf stitches and pistil stitches. This easily took longer than sewing the actual shorts.

I also changed the fabrics an itty bit: for the inner waist band and the pocket bag, I used leftover pink cotton from my shirt last fall rather than the same denim used for the shorts proper. This kept the bulk down and the softness up–the cotton is so much nicer against the skin. I also used some of the cotton to line the back pockets so the reverse of the stitching wouldn’t snag when the pockets were used.

And then there was the stitching.

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Brief Digression Through Stitches Used in RTW Denim

Denim is a super stiff and bulky fabric, and if you sewed it up using the same techniques as for cotton or wool pants, it would be unwearable: the seams would be stiff and hard and rub your legs all the time. In order to make denim comfortable, special stitches are used, the most traditional being the flat-fell seam. For these, the fabric is sewn wrong-sides together, one of the pieces is trimmed down, the other wrapped around it, and then this is flattened and sewn to the outside of the garment. Like so:

The inside and the outside look the same because of how the fabric is wrapped around itself and then sewn flat to the garment, which makes it much more comfortable to wear. However, this is time consuming, so you’ll often see some shortcuts in rtw denim as well, like this:

Instead of a full flat-fell seam, it’s serged right sides together, and then the serged seam is stitched down to the inside of the garment. Still flat, still very strong, no tedious seam-wrapping and so much faster.

End digression.

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The shorts pattern contained instructions for neither, so I just added the simpler version–serged the main seams and then stitched the serged seam flat against the inside of the shorts. I cheated and used the overlock foot to get the stitching as straight and as close to the seam as possible; but I wasn’t quite as confident in the edge-stitching, so I didn’t use a contrasting thread. Maybe next time. But the seams are strong and flat and comfortable and the inside of the shorts is really, really neat.

I also top-stitched the waist-band both top and bottom to keep the pink cotton on the inside, rather than rolling up into a little pink border on top of the shorts.

Most often with denim, you’ll see shaped front and back yokes rather than darts, but this denim was light enough that the darts worked. And it fit perfectly. I cut out a straight size 16 based on my hip measurements with no alterations and it’s just right.

I also had some fun with adding bar-tack stitches to the pockets for added strength (check your jeans–they have bar-tack stitches on the pockets, and likely rivets as well). Have I mentioned lately how much I love my Janome? It has a bar-tack stitch!

tl; dr: I made some shorts! Here they are.